By Luis Yerovi Jr.

As the world's only remaining superpower prepares to vote for its next president, a clear ideological divide has emerged between the two sparring parties. Interestingly enough, each party's platform can be-- more or less-- summed up in one word. For the conservative right, led by George Bush and the neocons, the word is "FREEDOM." For the liberal left, the word is "COOPERATION."

In conservative Orwellian doublespeak, FREEDOM is professed to be mankind's loftiest goal. FREEDOM is equated with individuals living as they choose, carving out their own destinies without government interference. In foreign policy, the concept of FREEDOM is used to justify the Iraqi war. The Iraqi war was a way of bringing FREEDOM to a previously oppressed people so that they can taste liberty and democracy (the doublespeak: you have to destroy the village in order to save it). Free societies, or so goes the argument, will decrease the chance of further war. At home, FREEDOM is the right to keep your hard-earned money and invest it as you choose, without being taxed to death by an intrusive government.

Neocon FREEDOM, however, does not make room for personal, 60's style freedom. Under the neocon's platform, you are still not allowed to smoke marijuana, get an abortion (or get free condoms!) in aid dependent and HIV ravaged Third World countries, perform research on stem cells, be in a gay marriage, elect Ayatollahs (or Allendes for that matter) or protest illegal wars.

When the smoke clears, it is evident that Bush's FREEDOM refers to the unfettered "personal" freedom of corporations (as opposed to people) to act as they please all in the name of profit. For the rest of us, FREEDOM is the "privilege" of living under the guiding hand of "free markets."

To give this market über all philosophy legitamacy, Republican ideologues portray laissez-faire capitalism as the "great equalizer." Forget the government's New Deal, they say; FREE markets will create a fair playing field in which the little people of the world (laborers, small town farmers, Third World types, etc.) can prosper right along with the corporations. This economic sleight-of-hand--where the market is "revolutionary" (i.e. speaks for the masses)--is referred to by Thomas Frank as "market populism."

Market populist sentiment equates the market to democracy (which is fascinating in its own right given the utter absence of democracy in Free Trade talks). The ultimate ballot booth, they explain, is not votes; it's what we purchase. Some market "revolutionaries" believe the market order is ordained by God. Bush, for example, exclaims, "FREEDOM is not America's gift to the world, FREEDOM is the almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world."

To promote their agenda to a shaken electorate, conservatives and their corporate media pals astutely cuddle the fear and greed parts of our brain --what Freud might call the "Id." And what a convenient nightmare 911 has been for the neocon's promotion of FREEDOM (not to speak to what it has done for civil liberties).

The liberal left apparently has a hard act to follow in appealing to the frightened masses. But actually, this is not the case. The liberal agenda is ultimately about the importance of family and home for the well-being of a society (the importance of "home" is naturally elicited from the powerful biological and economic effects of "parental investment" or "Love" on human evolution). And hasn't the prospect of "home" always been a comforting concept for countless generations around the globe?

Liberals place their bets on the idea that humans have evolved to be SOCIAL creatures (i.e. we have cultural norms which allow for social cohesion). Like it or not, we are hot-blooded mammals who have evolved to care for our young within a village environment.

Liberals understand that the world we inhabit is complexly interconnected and ultimately fragile (not simply divided into "Good" and "Evil"). To maintain order, GLOBAL laws and COOPERATION -- among families, villages and ultimately nations -- is paramount.

In Iraq, COOPERATION means, first of all, being responsible enough to admit to the world that America made a mistake in invading a country not responsible for 911. Following this admission, America can then get to the business of building a true coalition to help stop the slaughter of the innocent and defuse the fundamentalists.

At home, COOPERATION means rolling back the tax cuts on the wealthiest 1% in order to promote a more equal distribution of wealth among America's citizens and to help assure the survival of Social Security.

COOPERATION does not depend on a higher power or a manifest destiny for its legitimacy. The platform simply depends on MANKIND, in all our diversity, weakness and ultimate goodness.

As I reflected on these two opposing viewpoints, I realized that the essence of each argument could be metaphorically illustrated by comparing two biker/buddy movies: "The Motorcycle Diaries" and "Easy Rider." In the final analysis, it is the perceived presence or absence of a moral human soul that separates these two ideologies.

Easy Rider: The Emptiness of Freedom

Dennis Hopper's "Easy Rider " is a 60's counterculture movie classic. The movie stars Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and cameos a young Jack Nicholson as an alcoholic small town lawyer. The movie chronicles the journey of two free-spirits (Captain America, played by Fonda and Billy, played by Hopper) as they ride their "bad ass" choppers from Los Angeles to New Orleans in search of America.

"Easy Rider" reflects the 1960's hippie movement. Drugs, sex and "freedom" were all about liberating and "discovering" the full potential for self-expression. "Easy Rider," however, is not a feel-good experience like a Grateful Dead concert. Instead, Hopper's movie takes a jaded look at the potential emptiness and danger of "anything-goes" cultural freedom.

The movie opens with a quintessential capitalist act of supply and demand--a drug deal. As 747 jumbo jets scream overhead, Cap. America and Billy sell a large quantity of cocaine to some big wigs. With the drug money, the pair are off on their big adventure.

The majority of the movie takes place in a setting that transmits feelings of alienation, boredom and loneliness. Though some of the scenes are cinematographically breathtaking (the purple-lavendar desert sunset comes to mind though even that scene was more psychedelic than awe-inspiring), most of the film depicts a parched land devoid of life sprinkled here and there by signs of America's throw-away society. The road seems endless but leading nowhere.

The psychological landscape of the movie adds to this feeling of alienation. All relationships seem superficial. Early on in the movie, Captain America and Billy encounter a desert-dwelling hippie commune. Though trying to be "hip," the commune members come off as self-centered, misguided zombies trying--not too successfully--to mimic an ancient, vanished indigenous culture.

Even the friendship that is supposed to exist between Captain America and Billy is sophomoric and shallow. Part of this feeling has to do with the fact that the actors were filmed actually stoned (i.e. intoxicated with marijuana). As a result, their dialogue is at times nonsensical, irrelevant and offers minimal insight into their relationship.

The feelings of alienation are compounded by the profound intolerance demonstrated by the townspeople in reaction to the Easy Riders as they "invade" their America. Being ideologically "free"--at least in the 1960's cultural sense--Cap. America and Billy shed mainstream behavior. They ride around on flashy motorbikes, wear "Stars and Stripes" bandanas and let their hair grow long and wild. These behaviors, of course, do not sit well with the small-town country boys and officials for whom social conformity is a virtue. For them, long-haired hippies represent the flag-burning, draft- dodging elite who harm America by denigrating her values.

Captain America and Billy end up being blown away by intolerant, red state country boys riding in a pickup truck. This tragic ending feels eerily similar to the events of 911. For both cases, it can be postulated that the "in your face" openness of the victims (for 911, the symbolic "victims" were American style capitalism and Pentagon led foreign policy) rubbed the killers the wrong way. The question, "Why do they hate us?" and the conservative right en vogue response, "They hate us because of our freedom," would be apropos for both cases.

Captain America and Billy's journey to discover America through the embrace of "freedom" turns out to be tragically unattainable. The day before they are murdered-- and a day after dropping acid (LSD) with two prostitutes in a New Orleans cemetery-- Captain America says to Billy, "We failed, man." Billy, responds, "What do you mean, man? We made lots of money, now we are free." Captain America, at last seeing through the pot smoke haze, understands the ultimate shallowness and naiveté of their trumpeting of laissez-faire individual freedom as a way to fulfillment. There is an absence of deeper meaning and human connection in freedom which money or drugs can't fill.