by Bobby Brown

Created on: October 08, 2010   Last Updated: July 16, 2011

America has always projected a world image of freedom. Despite this outward facade there are many United States citizens for whom freedom is an ethereal dream. Worse, many of those people don't even know that they are not free! Slavery is perfected when the slaves actually believe that they are free; this is classic Orwellian double think and is reminiscent of an idea from the same literary classic, George Orwell's 1984 that, "Freedom is Slavery."

 
 
America: Land of the Free...(because of the slave?)
 
This is one of the focal points of Howard Zinn's best selling A People's History of the United States. It is true that history is written by conquerors; winners never want to be portrayed negatively in history therefore it is to their advantage to bias the perception of history in their favor. I use the phrase "perception of history" to contrast it with actual history since the two can be quite different. To give a quick example Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that "All men are created equal", "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness", etc. Historically Jefferson is portrayed as a person who believed to the deepest part of his being such ideals.  Yet somehow Jefferson "forgot" about the Native Americans whose land Europeans stole, the African American slaves that he personally owned, the multitude of indentured servants who were in certain instances treated no better than their Negro counterparts, the poor and women who could not own land and therefore could not vote. I recommend that the reader read and carefully consider professor Zinn's book at a time of their convenience, however to quote directly from page 58:
 
"To call them 'the people' was to omit black slaves, white servants, displaced Indians. And the the term 'middled class' concealed a fact long true about this country..." "It was a middle-class society governed for the most part by its upper classes. Those upper classes, to rule, needed to make concession to the middle class, without damage to their own wealth or power, at the expense of slaves, Indians and poor whites. This bought loyalty. And to bind that loyalty with something more powerful even than material advantage, the ruling group found, in the 1760s and 1770s, a wonderful useful device. That device was language of liberty and equality , which could unite just enough whites to fight a Revolution against England, without ending slavery or inequality."
 
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