Whose Freedoms are we Fighting for?

The other morning after getting up at 3 am to go in to my 3rd job, I saw a local news story about veterans upset over the Occupy Denver protesters and their use of public space which the vets had gotten a permit for to have their Veterans Day parade.  This of course was before the overnight, riot gear clad police take down of the Occupy Denver protest camps.  This shutdown, enforced Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, was done in spits of the peaceful and non-violent protests of the occupiers.  The riot police were brought in under the cloud of darkness, in the wee hours of the morning so their actions would be hidden from the prying eyes of the local media. Now, thank goodness, the state capital will be cleared of the protesters, the veterans will be able to march, to remember the sacrifices they made and to be honored for those sacrifices which they made for the good of the country, for the protection of America, for the protection of our freedoms

 

Veterans should not be disrespected for their service and I would think they would want to celebrate those who are exercising the freedoms these vets have fought to protect.  I would think they would stand with the occupiers - for in protesting and utilizing the 1st amendment, the occupiers are honoring the sacrifices of the soldiers - and in the take down of Occupy Denver the soldiers are actually the ones ultimately disrespected in that when freedoms are ignored, so are the sacrifices of the veterans.

 

Maybe the real victims here are the vets, for they are the ones who have fought to protect the freedoms of our citizens only to see their service disregarded and disrespected when these freedoms are taken away. We are told these soldiers have been put through the horrors of war to protect our freedoms, yet when the freedoms of some are taken away I'm forced to wonder who they are fighting for - or rather who they have been made to fight for.

 

When the freedoms of people to peacefully protest the status quo are denied, to protest a system which allows for incredible inequality, I wonder whose freedoms the vets have been fighting for.  To me it seems like they are being told to fight for freedoms, but only for the freedoms of the 1%, of the wealthiest, of the people who benefit from such system, of the status quo.

 

So whose freedoms have these soldiers been fighting for?  Apparently not mine and apparently not the occupiers. Then we are forced to ask, whose freedoms are they fighting for and who are the ones forcing them to fight, sacrifice, suffer, and die to protect these "freedoms?"  When we disrespect the freedoms of our citizens, we disrespect the service of our veterans.  Just whose freedoms are we fighting for here? 

 

(Hint, its not the 99%)