“The first is the right to free speech and for people to peacefully assemble and make their voices heard. The second is the rule of law. Both must be upheld. We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent.”
Joe Biden. May 2, 2024
All freedoms under capitalism are either by concession, or they are the flexing of a confident class in power — symbolizing that their right to rule is thoroughly uncontested. Freedom of expression is no different. “Have your freedoms,” they say, “it will not hurt us.”
That is, of course, until it does.
On May 5, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu closed all Al-Jazeera offices within the zionist occupied territories. It had been voted unanimously by his cabinet, and announced through Twitter. This is capitalist freedom.
This declaration comes on the eve of the fascist state’s invasion of Rafah, the last remaining bastion for the Palestinian people in Gaza. As they threaten to slaughter everyone who remains in Rafah, the zionist genocidaires have seized control of the only real exit — the Rafah crossing. There is nowhere to go. They plan to bury Rafah and declare over the smoldering graves of hundreds of thousands, “We gave them a choice.” When the occupation brutalizes the Palestinians and systematically exterminates journalists, they want their cheers, their gloating and justifications, to be the only record left. This is capitalist freedom.
Let us imagine, for a moment, the ruling classes of a country as the owners of a pet — the classes they dominate. Imagine that the tight collar around that pet’s throat, that leash held so dearly in the ruling classes’ hand, is the state. The length of this leash represents the degree of freedoms conditionally extended from the ruling classes to their subordinates. If the pet — us, in other words — is docile and complacent, the ruling classes will give that leash lots of slack. The minute we threaten to “make use” of the slack, zip!, they tighten it again. The length of our chain depends on how secure our masters feel.
At home, the U.S.-Canadian Empire’s ruling classes continue to support the genocide. More money, bombs, and most recently, in another bold exercise of capitalist “freedom” of the press, bi-partisan legislation to ban TikTok. While the capitalist legislature claims a ban on TikTok from all U.S. channels by 2025, part of the on-going campaign to seize the platform from China, is for the purposes of “national security,” a recent panel between Secretary of State Blinken and former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney explains what the legislation is really about:
“Some wonder why there was such overwhelming [bipartisan] support for us to shut down potentially TikTok […]” Romney said to Blinken at a McCain Institute keynote conversation. “If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts. I know that’s of real interest, and the President will get a chance to take action in that regard.”
Yank that collar. This is capitalist freedom.
Whether it’s the shaky, grassroots coverage by victims of the genocide filmed and uploaded to TikTok, or — what these ghouls claim to prefer — the mediated, professional reporting by groups like Al-Jazeera, everything that exposes the settler-colonial genocide for what it is will be silenced. This is the short leash, the extent of capitalist freedom. What this legislation, as well as the ongoing student movement, is proving beyond a doubt, is that to play by the rules created by our ruling classes is an exercise in futility. Organize, agitate, escalate. By legal means at first, until your numbers and organized militancy are at the point when only adhering to the law of the mass murderers is a hindrance. Defend yourselves from arrest and legal prosecution by all means. Cease all crying when our enemy does not play by their own rules — this is a fight for humanity, our world, not some game. Know that our oppressors will tighten freedom until it is but a hand clenching our throat — we must use the length of leash they’ve given us to strangle them instead!
The people have made clear their desire for the truth, it is now our job to provide it. Struggle and fight for the expansion of the radical people’s presses, across all mediums and channels, for our own words and message!
