Sandra Neish
Jack Manhattan
Harvey Wallbanger
If you were to ask a person on the street how they would define America I’m sure you would get many answers. You might get that we are a proud people and they would be right. Someone might say we are a Democracy and again they would be right. Others would say we are a capitalist country and yes they would be right as well. So lets look at what it means to be a capitalist nation.
Capitalism is an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations.
Reread that last part, go ahead I’ll wait, I need another drink anyway… Ok now did you see that last part “the of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or CORPORATIONS” and that’s the part I have an issue with. I don’t have a problem with the fact that corporations exist, I think they are necessary to the economy. My issue is that we have given this country to the corporations. Our elected officials are now just paid shills for the corporations and because of this the corporations now run our country.
We let corporations control the news so they can push the company line that they know what’s best for us. We let corporations decide which medicine we need because they gave millions of dollars to congress. We let corporations decide what kind of health care we should have and when it’s all said and done the corporations decided that they weren’t getting enough money so they started denying care to pad their wallets. They decided that if it was going to cost them money then it wasn’t worth giving their product to the people.
Is that how we want to live our lives? Do we want corporations running our lives? What happens when the corporations decide that you are better suited to work in one their shops or factories for chump change or that your life is worth less than another persons life? Because that is the road we are traveling down faster that a drunk driver after a night of half priced well drinks. (seriously folks don’t drink and drive because you might hit a bump and spill your drink)
During the summer of 2009 when Obama was pushing for Congress to pass affordable health care, we were bombarded with the phrase “Socialism”. Socialism is defined as a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community . Yet if you ask an obstructionist a Republican, socialism is a bad word because they associate it with Communism. They associate the two because for years the Communists were the enemy of the state and if they could, they would invade and kill your children while you slept. The United States needed a boogie man to keep the people in line and for years the boogie man was the dreaded Russians.
Socialism does NOT equal Communism.
Every day we interact with socialist programs, and have we all become communists? Last time I looked we didn’t live in Soviet Russia, so the answer is no. Our police force, fire departments, first responders, military, and even our mail are socialist programs. We even have a program called Social Security to help out those who have worked their whole lives when they retire. It will be there for our parents, it will be there for us and it will be there for our children and grandchildren. But we are not calling for these to end, are we?
Why? Because it’s these very programs that keep society running. Because without these programs we no longer are Americans but cogs in the money-making machine that is the corporations.
Imagine if corporations ran the police department. You come home to find someone has broken into your house. You call the police to report the crime but instead of calling 911 you have to call India. When they finally get there they hand you a bill before they do any investigating.
Your house catches on fire but you haven’t paid your fire bill so they won’t come to put out the fire or better yet the Fire Department decides that you live in a house that is just to risky to cover, so even though you’ve paid the bill month after month they decide it’s not worth the money and drop your house or even your neighborhood from their coverage.
What if the defense of your great country was left up to Blackwater XE or Halliburton? Go ask the Iraqis how that’s going. The reason we are as safe as we are is because of the men and women that give their lives for our ideals. If we had a private military what is in place to stop them from turning the United States of America into the United Corporation of Halliburton.
You might say, “Lay off the cheap vodka, Harvey. That just sounds ridiculous.”
Tell that to the 47 million Americans that don’t have Health Insurance. Tell that to the thousands that will die this year. Tell that to the millions that are seeing their premiums go up every year. Tell that to the family that is losing their house to pay for a trip to the hospital. If people knew that they live with socialism every day they might not be afraid to let the government provide health care.
If government were to provide health care that everyone had access to no matter what their condition then I think we would be better off in the long run. We might see the number of cancer cases decline because people have access to preventive care and screenings. Which might, somewhere down the road, lead to the cure for cancer because it’s something the tax payers would call for.
The corporations have no interest in curing cancer because there is no money in the cure. They get more for the treatment of cancer and more cases of cancer means more money for the shareholders. We might see the end to various common diseases because the government has an active role in curing them. We might not have flu pandemics because the government has enough medicine to treat everybody in the nation. We might become a stronger healthier nation because everyone has health care.
I say we take back the word socialism and make it about SOCIALism. I say we stop looking at whats best for “ME” and start looking at whats best for “WE” because the health and well-being of my neighbor affects my health and well-being.
As I’ve said before I don’t want to get rid of the corporations, they do serve a function, but I think is time for Americans to realize that we are losing our grip on America being a democracy.
When the corporations take over they are not interested in protecting people. They are after the almighty dollar. The corporations need to learn that government is not there to protect them, it is there to protect the people. Right now the people need access to health care and if they can’t get it from the corporations then it needs to come from the government.
Remember the Constitution says “WE THE PEOPLE” not “WE THE CORPORATIONS”.
