Corporate control

By Yvonne Nyenhuis

Fri, Jul 6th, 2012
Posted in All Commentary

Comment(1)

In my twenties, I worked as an Embroidery Designer in Philadelphia. My dear friend and mentor, Ronald Levy, and I frequently had lunch together in Fairmont Park. One day we were sitting in the sun enjoying our corned beef sandwiches and pickles, when a flock of birds settled in front of us pecking at chunks of dry rolls that had been thrown on the ground. Out of nowhere a witch-like figure, scrawny and bent over, covered in black, emerged. She pulled a crumpled brown paper bag from the folds of her garments, scooped the rolls into her bag, and swiftly disappeared. No one should have to take dry chunks of bread from the birds in order to survive!

Fast-forward to nineteen-sixty-seven. I’m married, living in an apartment in Minneapolis with my husband, Glenn, and our eighteen-month-old son, Gordon. Once a week I’d pile our laundry into the stroller and taking Gordon’s hand, walk to the Laundromat on Hennepin Avenue. One morning we walked over the Hennepin Bridge. I found myself looking down to the railroad tracks below where there was a large cement platform. I wondered at first what all the people were doing. They huddled in twos and threes. Some walked aimlessly in the area. They were shabbily dressed, with slumped shoulders looking down at the ground. Then it hit me. These people are homeless! The awful reality swept over me. When you don’t have a job there is no place to go. When night comes, where do you sleep? What do you eat?

For forty years the middle class has been losing ground and poverty has increased. The “poor” did not cause the “recession,” yet Republicans in Congress tell us that “entitlements” are the problem. We must cut food stamps, school lunches, Head Start and Planned Parenthood. Meanwhile they insist we should continue subsidies to Corporations and tax cuts for the rich.

It is not “Big Government” we need to fear. Corporations have taken over our lives! The drive to “repeal Obama Care” has been carefully orchestrated by Health Insurance companies. The Media is fed by a spring of lies and misinformation. Health Care is a business motivated by profit. Drug companies’ main objective is not “healing the sick,” it is selling drugs! Monsanto and Cargill engineer our food for “appearance and durability.” We are left to wonder how much nutrition is in the food we eat.

Corporations put profit ahead of the health and welfare of workers and desecrate the environment. (We must get rid of the E.P.A. All those silly regulations are cutting into our profits. We must defund OSHA. Safety of workers? Not our responsibility!) They have money and influence but we have “the vote.” Presently sinister forces are at work to suppress the vote, threatening the survival of our Democracy!

In the pursuit of “smaller government,” Republicans have made huge cuts in money allocated to States to pay salaries for public workers. We NEED police, firefighters and teachers. If they are hired, they will be able to afford to buy houses and cars. They will increase the need for goods and services in the private sector. Banks will lend to new businesses because a market is created. They will pay taxes, increasing government revenues, which will allow us to start paying off the deficit. When we provide upward mobility for the poor and the middle class, we all benefit, including the rich!

On a trip to England I stood with a friend on the shore of a harbor looking over the town of Wivenhoe. I was surprised that there was no water. The boats were sitting moored to the muddy bottom. It was explained to me that twice a day there was a tide of water pouring in from the North Sea: that “The Rising Tide Raised All Boats!”

Comments:

7:04:17, Jul 9th 2012

Harold says:

Yvonne -- So, you must be voting for Mit Romney in November? That's a joke! Ha! Ha!

Keep in mind that the middle class is going to absorb the majority of costs associated with this new health care system. The rich will always be able to afford quality health care, the poor will always be taken care of under state and federal programs, so the middle class will take the hit financially.

And, regardless of what changes we can make with respect to coverage of everyone or a select few, insurance companies are always going to come out ahead. The third party administrators hike up their rates based on risk of loss from trend analysis conducted by their actuaries. THEY WILL NOT LOSE MONEY. Instead, this new health care system enables health care providers and insurance companies to charge more and make more money off the government and the tax payers. Guaranteed, we will see more usage of the system, and not always for situations that require medical attention (i.e. the common cold).

We were poor growing up, never took any government help, and rarely went to the doctor. I'm alive and well today, and I do believe that which is provided free (entitlement) becomes over-used and abused very quickly. I guess I will have to sit back, wait, watch, and some day tell you, "I told you so." Unfortunately, this is one of those instances in which I don't want to be right.

Harold