A slave is a piece of property owned by someone or some entity.

I really need someone to convince me that the majority of us are not owned by health insurance companies, banks, companies that pay our salaries and can discard us in a second, and a political system that gives us few choices. (Shackles and whips are not needed in today’s world.)

For all the truths, bitching, advice, suggestions, anger, rants, and opinions posted on DU daily, the fact that we are slaves never comes up. But make no mistake about it. We are all owned. As long as we live in this country and play by the rules, we have little or nothing to say about how we are governed, manipulated and screwed on a daily basis.

Need more proof? About 75% of the people in this country want a public health care option (and perhaps even a single payer system like the rest of the civilized world has). Yet, what we want is being ignored.

How secure is your job? Even if you belong to a union, the company you work for could pick up and move to Bangladesh next week. “Official” government unemployment figures aside, countless millions of Americans are out of work because most work has been shipped to countries that pay people perhaps as much as $1 a day. None of us had any say in that, or the means to prevent it.

How many of you read the small print in your mortgage? The purpose of small print is to ensure that you can get fucked by whoever is holding your mortgage anytime they want to fuck you.

And regarding our two party political system, about the only thing we can be sure of is that Democrats will sell us out reluctantly, while Republicans will sell us out with glee.

So can anyone explain to me how you can believe we are not slaves?