Government Is for Corporations, Not the People 11/22/2007 8:29:29 PM
The U.S. government no longer operates for the good of the American public, answering the public needs. Instead, corporations have bought control of the Presidency and of Congress, with the result that government puts corporate wants over public needs. In the Democratic Presidential candidates' debate last week, John Edwards made the statement that we now have a corporate government that has been bought and paid for with lobbyists' dollars and that it will do no good to replace a Corporate Republican administration with a Corporate Democratic administration. This struck a chord with me.
It seems obvious to me that America is now, and has been for years, run for the benefit of big corporations with little to no concern for the best interests of the American people. Why did Bush/Cheney take us into a war with Iraq? The American people certainly have not benefitted from this war. Corporations, on the other hand, have feasted on billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers' money. Look at how much Halliburton alone has raked in. Then consider all the other corporations that have made hundreds of millions to billions of dollars through privatization of the war effort. For these various corporations the war has been a Godsend...but not for the American public and fighting forces. If we end up gaining increased access to Iraq's oil, then look at the benefits for big oil corporations. Corporations wanted this war, not the American people. That is why Bush/Cheney took America into this needless war.
Why doesn't America have some sort of universal health care system? Certainly the public wants and needs it. However, corporations, like insurance companies and drug companies, do not want it. Therefore, their lobbyists have bought off government officials to insure they get what they want instead of the American people.
Why doesn't America have an effective solution to illegal immigration? The people want it. But corporations do not. They prefer the cheap labor that has flooded the country. The government could end the illegal immigration problem tomorrow by passing a law that fined anyone $10,000 per incident if they hired an illegal immigrant. Jobs would disappear for them. You would not need a wall to stop the flow into the U.S. from Mexico. You would be apt to be trampled by all the illegals headed back into Mexico since there was no longer work for them here. But corporations want to keep them here...
Does the American public really want functions once done by government agencies shifted to private corporations, including many of the duties the Armed Forces once did for themselves in a war zone but under the present Republican administration now are performed by private companies? I don't think the public wants to pay the inflated prices that these private companies charge for the same service the government once did itself cheaper and more effectively...but the corporations love it! Anyone other than corporate America think privatizing Social Security as Bush proposed is a good idea? The public would suffer in the end, whereas corporations like investment firms would reap tremendous profits.
When will the American public wake up and put an end to corporations buying their governement through the billions of dollars in lobbyist spending? When will the voting public seize control of their government once again and make it function for the best interest of the American people as a whole instead of the current situation that benefits corporations and the elite wealthiest 5 percent of
the population? Probably never. We are sheep for the corporations to shear.
