Freedom?

Parenti’s Leash and the Architecture of Western Control

Morning Comrades.

Some housekeeping to start, I am going to be back home in London all of next week, dispatches will spotty if non-existent, depending on what happens, and considering it’s a holiday - we can make the dispatches in person at a pub, but let’s see. Just a heads up.

I came across this wonderful line from one of Michael Parenti’s talks the other day that has stuck with me, that being: “Those who think they’re free in this world haven’t come to the end of their leash yet” and rather than using that for a old man defeatist bullshit glob, here it is turned onto its head to defy any and all entitled nihilism.

Let’s stop pretending. You are not free. None of us are. And the sooner we spit out that lie, the sooner we can start tearing down the machine that feeds it to us. Michael Parenti wasn’t being poetic, he was telling you the truth, raw, brutal, and exact. The leash is real. It’s wound around your job, your rent, your debt, your digital profile, your passport, your police, your silence. You might not feel it when you obey, when you go along, when you play your role. But try pulling, just a little and see how fast the system reminds you who’s in control.

Since 9/11, that leash has been reinforced with steel cable: surveillance, endless war, anti-terror laws, the creeping normalization of authoritarian rule, all wrapped in the American/Disney/Visa flag and sold as democracy. The “War on Terror” was never about safety; it was about obedience. It was about shifting every sphere of life into a security zone, where questioning empire became subversion and where resistance, real resistance was criminalised. The liberal mask slipped, and underneath it was the snarling face of capital backed by guns, drones, and propaganda.

Freedom? That word has been beaten into submission and made to serve empire. It’s used to justify bombing villages, locking up protestors, and protecting billionaires while the working class drowns in rent, wages, and anxiety. You can “speak freely” online, right up until you challenge the wrong war or show too much solidarity with the wrong people. You can “vote,” but only between two parties managed by Wall Street. You can “protest,” but try setting foot on the wrong campus lawn or blocking a freeway and see how quickly your supposed freedoms turn into felonies.

But here's the thing, the leash is showing. The contradictions are sharp. And every time the state cracks down on a protestor, censors dissent, evicts a family, funds another genocide, or bails out another banker, more of us feel the collar tighten. This is not the freedom we were promised let alone are fighting for. This is the freedom of a pet allowed to roam the yard, so long as it doesn’t dig under the fence.

Sure, this dispatch is a warning, yes, but it’s also a call to arms. It dissects the lie of Western liberty not out of cynicism, but because we believe in something better. Real freedom. Classless, stateless, borderless human emancipation. The kind of freedom that doesn’t come with conditions, credit scores, or surveillance logs. The kind of freedom that capitalism cannot and will not ever allow.

We are not here to adjust the leash, we are here to snap it. Because if you are tired of being domesticated by capital, you are not alone. If you’ve ever felt that quiet rage behind your eyes when you realize the world is built to keep you numb and compliant, know that you are right to feel it. The world we deserve will not be granted. It will be built, in struggle, by us. And that struggle begins with naming the leash for what it is, and then refusing, absolutely refusing, to wear it anymore.

Revolution is not a fantasy. It is a necessity. And it begins when we stop mistaking the leash for liberty.