In the time before abolition, slave owners would cut the hamstrings of slaves so they couldn't run away. In a way, American workers who are in jobs they hate, that they are forced to stay in to keep their health insurance, are also hamstrung. They can't run away either.

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In the time before abolition, slave owners would cut the hamstrings of slaves so they couldn't run away. In a way, American workers who are in jobs they hate, that they are forced to stay in to keep their health insurance, are also hamstrung. They can't run away either.

There are an estimated forty million slaves in the world. UNESCO describes slavery as "unable to leave employer." I wonder how many tens of millions of Americans are stuck in jobs because they'd lose health insurance. Should they be added to the slave count?

When Obamacare went on line, there were some people who were joyfully able to quit jobs they hated--because the jobs were oppressive, because the employer or the company was abusive, because they couldn't stand the work.

This "hamstringing" of employees through health insurance helps corporations retain low paid, unhappy employees, especially those with family members with health problems, as virtual indentured servants. A mother or father can't leave a job if they have a child with a chronic illness, or a spouse with an illness that's potentially fatal if not treated.

This week, Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives made it clear that he is on board with the bi-partisan agreement on funding the part of Obamacare that Trump de-funded. This is part of the process of castrating the American worker.

This is a continuation of the effort to keep the middle class and the poor so close to the edge of poverty, living paycheck to paycheck.

There is a better way. It starts with, as Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus say shifting from an economics of selfishness to an economics of selflessness. And, Yunus say, capitalism must shift from the aim of companies being to extract maximum profit to aiming to help people and solve problems.

The aversion to programs that support the great masses of people is a neoliberal concept, created by libertarian heroes Friederich Hayek,

Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand, then embraced and popularized by Milton Friedman. Neoliberal philosophies include getting rid of all regulations that protect workers, the poor, nature, democracy and justice. They believe that the system should be set up to maximize benefits for the wealthy, that heirs of the wealthy deserve their inheritances and should be free to use them any way they want, even though they are not earned.

The left should MUST expose neoliberals and neoliberalism and get the middle class to see it as more of a threat to Democracy, justice and equality than any of the targets the powers that be have distracted us with the in the past.

Neoliberals control the Democratic and Republican parties. Trump's cabinet is full of them, as were Obama's and Bush's.

The reality is, neoliberals believe in an economic system and capitalist model that enshrines what amounts to slavery. Tell everyone you know about neoliberalism and who embraces it.

George Monbiot proposes that we need a new political story that supports the masses and which characterizes neoliberal philosophies as the selfish, toxic ideas that they are. We need politicians who will embrace those new stories and run against the corporate owned incumbents in both parties.

Authors Bio:

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

Rob Kall Wikipedia Page

Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel

Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel

Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.

Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.

To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..

To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.

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His quotes are here

Rob's articles express his personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.

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