Of the Corporations, By the Corporations, For the Corporationsby
Marianne Williamson <http://www.mwblog.com/journal/>
Oct 14, 2009 - So the Senate Committee came up with a proposed bill
today, calling it (inexplicably to me) "health reform."
As we know, the bill is a boon to the insurance industry because it
mandates health insurance. Yet without a public option -- real
competition for the health insurers -- there is not much in this bill to
cut our costs, and a lot in there to increase their profits.
In the words of the late Supreme Court Justice Lewis Brandeis, "We can
have great wealth amassed in the hands of a few, or we can have
democracy. We cannot have both." The idea that we're giving over the
health and welfare of the American people to one group of corporate
masters makes me very sad. When I was younger, it made me angry. Now, it
just makes me sad.
In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln wrote of the sacrifices of
the Union soldiers, who fought and died so that "government of the
people, by the people, for the people" would not perish from the earth.
Yet a later President, Rutherford B. Hayes, would argue that we'd become
a "government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the
corporations."
And still the contest continues. Even today, we're in a struggle to
decide who owns our government: people, or corporations. And at least so
far as how it looks within today's health care debate, it looks like
corporations are winning.
Capitalism, yes. Capitalism sans ethics, no. Corporations free to do
business, yes. Corporations free to run roughshod over the collective
good, no. Money flowing in a healthy and positive way through our
society, yes. Money running Washington, no.
We need public financing of political campaigns, and until we get it,
all these "issues" that we argue about but serve as a cover over the
real issue: Money runs America. And how truly sad that is.
http://www.mwblog.com/journal/archives/2009/10/of_the_corporat.php
