What Do I Owe?

From Susan D...

Oscar's Sunday morning thread got me thinking. Mainly because it reminded me that people concentrate on what is due to them, but not what they owe.

In a completely secular sense you can see this all over our society. My brother has worked for Delphi for nearly thirty years. They have demanded mandatory overtime and forced vacations. They demand total loyalty (submission) to the company.

Yet now they ask the workers to take a nearly 50% cut in pay, and *at the same time* award substantial bonuses to management.

We saw this blindness to what is owed in the Bush administration's response to Katrina. Since Bush appears to lack the capacity for simple humanity I won't even go there. But...at least some of those people had to be Republicans who gave him their support and voted for him. He accepted that support as his due. Obviously he felt no obligation to return that support. He didn't feel he owed them anything.

The greed that reigns in our government and in most corporations is killing America. We will continue the downward spiral because they do not believe that they owe anything in return.

If you use up thirty year's of somebody's working life you owe them the pension you promised. You got your dues, now you owe.

If you're a politician who got voted into office you need to deliver what you promised. You got your dues, now you owe.

For most of us.....well, we're not getting any dues. We're getting lied to, spied on, unemployed and undereducated. What do we owe?

To the Bush administration and the corporations, nothing. But don't we owe something to each other? We're all in this together, all genders, races, political parties, religious denominations, non-religious, whatever. At least 98% of us suffer in one way or another from the failure of our society to meet its obligations. To pay what they owe.

I don't know if we can make it better. I hope we can. But I feel sure that Howard Dean and every Deaniac out there believes we owe it to each other to try our hardest to see that everyone realizes that for everything you are due there is something you owe.

Susan D.

And adding a quick note from Jessica..."MViMV's guest blogger tonight at 8pm EST is Kety Esquivel from CrossLeft."

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