Keith Olbermann and my Tuesday slavery post.

I heard Keith Olbermann use the term “slavery” twice during his Wednesday night commentary.

I hear out-of-work acquaintances use the term “slavery” quite often.

Many of you took exception with the my use of the word “slavery” last Tuesday. Perhaps you can live with terms like “indentured servants,” “chattel,” “serfs,” or who the hell knows what.

As for me, I’ll stick with the word slavery. But I’m not talking about whips, shackles, lynchings, torture and all the despicable crimes that took place in the American South of the 18th and 19th centuries. That form of slavery is still going on in this miserable world in far too many places. And most people choose to ignore it.

However, beyond the horrors of torture that most can’t even imagine, what I’m talking about here is economic slavery. And once you are owned economically, who’s to say that your owners can’t do whatever they want to do to you? Including all of that “unimaginable” stuff.

Do you really believe you are not owned? Health insurance companies, banks, mortgage holders, your employer (if you have a job), and the government (Dem or Rep) which daily makes decisions about the environment in which you work, live and try to survive, own you. Wake the fuck up. You are a piece of property.

Last Tuesday, many of you made a case about “free enterprise,” “the magic of the marketplace,” and “pulling yourselves up by your own shoelaces.” My answer to all of you who stated such sentiments is that you are clueless as to the realities most people are experiencing in today's America. You have somehow managed to avoid the disaster that has befallen the vast majority of poeple in this country. And you feel superior because you are fortunate enough to have done so. There's a word for that. It's called arrogance. It's also called stupidity.

Not that it would make much of a difference to me if he endorsed every word you said in your self-indulgent little post of the other day.

Oh, and yes I believe I'm not owned, dear. My healthcare coverage is through the state. I live in a very funky little homemade house that I own. My employer is one of my closest friends. I made decisions many years ago that led me here. Nope, I'm not owned. If you are, maybe part of that is due to decisions YOU made. I doubt too many people here would want to live the lifestyle that I live, but yeah, I'm relatively free of the stuff you're referring to.


Fortunate? You are utterly clueless about me, dear.

Fortunate is the key word here. Too many people do not realize how fortunate they are. In our country, a person needs to win some kind of lottery to get ahead, be it the brains lottery, the mommy-and-daddy-have-money lottery, the connections lottery, the world-class-athlete lottery, or even the lottery lottery. Hard work alone guarantees nothing but a sore back.

These days empathy is so hard to find, and judgment is everywhere.

so many of them won the excuse lottery and not the common sense lottery.

look at them one at a time

Health insurance companies - yes I buy a product from them, and it is a product that I need. In that sense though, it is no different from food, water, gas, electric, and so on. Just because I require some things in order to live, and more so, in order to LIVE WELL, does not mean that the corporation that I buy those things from 'owns' me.

banks - Well, for one thing, the bulk of my money and my checking account are at a Credit Union, which I technically own. In actual practice not that much different from a bank, but I really do not see how I am owned by this place that keeps my money and that I use to pay my bills via checks. As a group they have tremendous power in the community, state, nation, and world, but on the micro level they also provide me with services. So I don't at all see how they own me. They often make tremendous profits from the dumb or the desperate and lobby against me when I propose that we prevent them from doing so, but even the dumb and desperate seem to me to be just exploited and ripped off rather than 'owned'.

mortgage holders - a small part of banking, but the general practice is for somebody to buy a house and to get a loan and to repay that loan with fairly low interest. That's a long way from being owned, and it has often been profitable for the home owner, their house payments are lower than renting and equivalent space, they have freedom to make the place their own, and they build up home equity. Some people may have dug themselves into bondage of sorts by taking a bad mortgage deal or buying too expensive of a house or by burning up their home equity, but that's a trap I, and most of the people I know, have avoided.

my employer - Yes, they sort of own us for 40, or in my case 20, and in other cases more than 40, hours a week. Except for a few things. First 40/112, means that only 36% of my time is under the control of my employer. Second, they pay me for this time, usually more than a subsistence wage. Lots more. Third, it's part of the social contract. Unless I had slaves of my own who provided me with food, clothing, shelter, medical care, entertainment, and transportation, then I am gonna have to work in order to be able to pay other people to do this for me, or work and provide all of those things by myself. Just because you have to work, does not mean you are a slave. The slave works for somebody else and gets almost nothing for himself. I know some DUers like to pretend that most Americans have nothing, but I don't buy it. I have been in the bottom quintile for income since 1986 and I have always had lots more than nothing.

my government - yes, it often does things that I don't want it to do, particularly when my neighbors elect Republicans. Still, it is a long way from owning me. Many of the things I rail about are even far away from affecting me. None of my close friends has died in Iraq, and I don't have lots of friends or relatives who live in Iraq. Still, I did what I could to prevent that destruction, and yes I lobby for other progressive things and often lose to big money and have to work against an education system and media loaded with lies. None of that though, equates to ownership or me being a piece of property. Just because I have no more power than any of the other 300,000 voters in my Congressional district does not make me, or any of them, property of our government. We are still a long way from a dictatorship.

As far as the 'misfortune that has befallen the vast majority of people' that is surely overstated. If there are 50 million poor in this country, then there are 250,000,000 non-poor. In this bad economy unemployment has risen to perhaps 17% (if you include the discouraged and those working part-time when they want full time work). The vast majority though - 83% still have jobs (and even some people who have lost their jobs are like the wife of my supervisor - not necessarily hurting that bad since her spouse still has a job as well as retirement pay and medical benefits from the VA and she now gets to collect unemployment for a year or more.)