Nation being driven by profits, privatization

The mask is off. President Eisenhower warned us in 1961 about the military industrial complex having too much influence.

Could he have imagined how almost completely privatized we have become? Privatization is when institutions, designed to protect people, are taken over by profit-driven business interests.

Maximization of profits is businesses’ primary goal, but not the goal of government which protects the people (of the people, by the people and for the people). Traffic laws keep the highways safe; the military protects against outside invaders; law enforcement keeps criminals from harming us; and government agencies protect us from those who charge huge prices for life-saving drugs or give us mortgages we can’t afford.

But we have been convinced not to trust government or politicians. An example of how divide and conquer has been used to take over institutions once the envy of the world, but now shadows of their former selves.

Years ago medicine was told it could be better with “help” from business. Recently retired nurses wistfully remember when enough nurses were on a floor to take care of a patient immediately. Funny how medicine has become so “efficient” (read: profitable).

Privatization has made inroads in education, the prison system, the news media (we pick what we want to hear — just like we pick toothpaste) and now profit-driven people have taken over the presidency.

Don’t worry though, our foreign policy will be much better for (the wealthy of) Russia and the U.S. What do you think President Reagan would think of our new relationship with the “evil empire?”

Now some are targeting Medicare and Social Security for privatizing. Is this the way to become great again?

Maybe we should change our name: the United Corporation of America, a government of, for, and by the dollar.

This story was originally published December 23, 2016 at 4:12 PM with the headline "Nation being driven by profits, privatization."