Modern Feudalism

      Perhaps I have never had an original idea in my life. It is possible, as the cliché goes – There’s nothing new under the sun.
      Still, during a rant session with a colleague the other night (on an admittedly, painfully slow night that was dragging on forever), I got off on this tangent and it felt like something I wanted to ruminate on and share with the interwebs.
      We (Americans in particular, but not exclusively by any means) live under the reign of a complex form of Modern Feudalism. *boom* Mic drop!
      But when you think about what classic Feudalism was, it isn’t such a big jump to make, logically speaking. A concept that describes the loops of responsibilities and reciprocation of one group to another, for instance in much of medieval Europe. Kings, with lords beholden to them, vassals beholden to them, and serfs working the land, beholden to the above. In theory, each group was responsibilities for the groups below, reciprocating for services rendered.
      The serfs worked (often like slaves) for landholders who supposedly ensured they were fed, clothed, and provided with law and protection
      The landholders paid taxes and goods to their overlords, who supposedly made sure they had imported goods, could export their excess, and provided protection as well.
      So on, up to the King, who bled all the other tiers dry while, in theory, providing them with infrastructure, military protection, culture, blah blah blah.
      Today – we suffer much the same, for all our pretty Constitutional rights and privileges. At the bottom of the heap, the working class. Those of us with blue collars who work our fingers to the bone, providing taxes and income for all those tiers above us. And at the top, not the President, nor the Government, but the CEOs of those huge corporations and special interest groups who hold 99% of the world’s wealth, 99% of the world’s power, but who constantly grasp for more, MORE, MORE, sucking the marrow from the worn and weary bones of We The People.
      Yeah, conspiracy theories abound here… but I honestly believe that since Corporations and S.I.G.s own the politicians/government, they’re the new king. They’re the rulers of Modern Feudalism.
      And like the corrupt bloodsucking monarchs in days of yore… they get fatter and fatter and are never, ever satisfied. They have everything, leaving us with nothing, and they do not understand why so many of us struggle against the yoke.
      Well, I don’t know if there’s a solution, but I remember reading about feudalism when I was a youngin’ and thinking to myself, “Gosh, what a sucky way to live. Let’s never go back to that.”
      Only we did.
      And I was right. It blows.
      *sigh*

Signed, Josie
Note: Image is “Game of Chess” by (muffet1) from SXC.hu

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