The late 1950s and 1960s saw a merger of government and business. For the most part, this happened during the Eisenhower administration. This new political climate seemed too powerful to many members of the beatnik generation. One of them is Ken Kesey, whose views on the "new government" are reflected in his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Nicknamed the “Combine,” this idea acts like a ruling power in an insane asylum. The hero's (or antihero's) struggles against the Combine parallel the struggles of Kesey and his peers against the policies of the Eisenhower administration. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay One of the most powerful platforms of the Eisenhower administration was the fight against communism, which is reflected in the Combine . The administration's main concern was containing communism. This is clearly reflected in the setting: a psychiatric institution. Just as the United States (and other countries) worked to keep communism confined to the Soviet Union and neighboring countries, we as a society try to separate the sick from the healthy, equipping our mosquito net institutions such as the one "a technician chose: set up a chair...and beat the screen until the chair is nothing more than a piece of wood" (108). The clash between idealism and practicality is also visible in the novel. Recalling the differences between democracy and communism, the nurse attempts to serve the majority despite the patients' desire to serve everyone. After a vote to allow the Acutes to watch a baseball game, she remarks that this might not happen because "Forty patients and only twenty voted. You have to have a majority to change department policy" (124). It can also be noted that Nurse Ratched's group meetings clearly suggest McCarthyism. During the McCarthy era, people registered as communists were asked to give the names of everyone else they knew to be communists. Ratched maintains the same disloyal tendencies in his parish by having men write in a book when someone says something revealing and rewarding them accordingly. McMurphy presents the analogy of a pecking party, where "the flock sees a spot of blood on a chicken and they all go to peck at it...until they tear the chicken to shreds" (55). It is easy to find similarities between the operation of the Combine and the domestic and budgetary policies of the Eisenhower administration. When Eisenhower, a famous World War II general, was elected, much of the nation's funds were diverted to the military. The military is like the Combine in that the institution is based on clear rules and a pyramidal authority structure (it may also be noted that Eisenhower used this method to organize his cabinet and departments). Much like embezzlement, the institution is moving away from a personal approach to solving patient problems, preferring to remain methodical and cold. The Combine's inhumane practices are explicitly detailed in a conversation between Harding and McMurphy in which Harding explains that "if she [Ratched] can't cut below the belt, she'll do it above the eyes" (165). It can be said that Eisenhower was something of a “lame” president; he proposed very few bills in Congress. Like Eisenhower, the Combine encourages its patients to leave politics in place, creating an atmosphere in which the.