Noblesse Oblige

Barry, My Liege :

Back in the 1980's I was in Manila on two business visits.

During the first trip, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos were very much in charge. The country was a lopsided oligarchy with a dictatorship. There were several military armed guards and a triple security door in the downtown hotel where I stayed.

During that trip, I met with an architect in his downtown office. While waiting in his reception area I had a chance conversation with another occupant. When I asked him what brought him to the office that day, he said he was an unemployed architect with nothing to do. The man who ran the office allowed him to hang out in the lobby for 40 hours per week in case he might run an errand and pick up a tip.

On another occasion, a group sat in a hotel lobby for a meeting. I rose to move a chair to make a more presentable seating arrangement, but another man suggested that I allow the waitress to do that task. When I protested that it was a small thing, he said that I did not understand the situation. The girls who work in the lobby are responsible for all guest needs. If one should fail to meet a need and allow a guest to move a chair, the girl will be fired. And, her family would suffer since she is the only employed person in a large family. All the girls were in that situation.

That's what it's like to live in an oligarchy: cheap labor, fear and misery.

My Liege, that is where we are heading in the United States of America.

To my readers - Noblesse oblige is a French phrase literally meaning "nobility obliges". It is the concept that nobility extends beyond mere entitlements and requires the person with such status to fulfil social responsibilities, particularly in leadership roles. [Wikipedia]

And, my readers, you are the nobles today because you have a computer and a comfortable life. You are probably not homeless and afraid of the night.

That means that you have an obligation to provide some form of meaningful work to the under employed, highly educated and eager Americans who can find only menial jobs if they can find any work at all.

Hire someone to do something for you. It is your obligation and it will help keep the country together until the situation changes. It does not matter what is the job or how long it takes. It is not charity, but it will give meaning to someone else less fortunate.

Here is a newspaper column titled 'Cheap Labor is part of American life' by Caille Milner which will explain it in down to earth language just in case you think that I am making this up :
http://www.sfgate.com/living/article/Cheap-labor-is-part-of-American-life-5063133.php

Merry Christmas, My Liege.

Your faithful servant,