Jim Hightower's Lowdown

What if we took monopoly out of our daily diets? Busting the power of abusive and arrogant food monopolists would be of such immediate benefit to the bottom lines of farmers, consumers, and workers that even middle-of-the-road congressional Democrats and a few Republicans are turning into Rooseveltian trustbusters. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, for example, usually a reliable defender of corporate interests, sees the connection between inner-city food deprivation and the consolidation of power by industrial farm and food profiteers, which he says, “are contrary to our very idea of farming in our country.” Working with progressive grassroots groups like Food & Water Action and Family Farm Action, Booker is sponsoring “The Farm System Reform Act,” a comprehensive proposal to overhaul major parts of the broken food structure. Included in his bill are strong, overdue provisions to phase out the monstrous system of CAFOs (confined Animal Feeding Operations) that are torturous hellholes for thousands of chickens, hogs, and other animals caged in each of these huge factories, which are also polluters of water, air, and rural communities. Rather than conventional liberal programs to treat the symptoms of monopoly, such progressive populist approaches begin to dismantle monopoly – and they represent our best chance of actually making life fairer for the majority of people. The good news is that much of the power to do this already exists. As investigative reporter Amy Swan writes in the January Washington Monthly, we don’t have to wait on recalcitrant Republicans and weak-kneed Dems in Congress to make progress. A tool shed of laws that were put in place during the past 100 years to counter monopoly power are still on the books. They’re stored in the Ag Department, FTC, FCC, SEC, Treasury, Justice, Federal Reserve, and so many other drawers of public power. Let’s put them to work!

No longer just a parlor game, monopoly is what’s for dinner. Practically every commodity and every step in producing our families’ most essential consumer purchase is in the tight grip of four or fewer global conglomerates: Four chemical giants control more than two-thirds of the world market for commercial seeds. Tyson Foods and three other meatpackers control 60 percent of the US poultry market, while just three global packers control 85 percent of the US beef market and 71 percent of the pork market. Four multinational grain trading powers control 90 percent of all grain (corn, wheat, rice, etc.) marketed in the world. John Deere and an Italian conglomerate control nearly half of the US market for tractors and other farm machinery. The biggest buyers of farmland are multibillion-dollar Wall Street speculators, jacking up per-acre prices beyond what family farmers (especially young people trying to get into farming) can pay; indeed, the largest owner of US ag land is super-rich tech mogul Bill Gates, who holds land in a dozen states that would amount to nearly a 400-square mile farm (bigger than four Seattles, the sprawling metropolis where he lives). President Biden has been a lifelong policy minimalist, but when running for president he at least recognized the need to “combat corporate power,” promising to “make sure farmers and producers have access to fair markets.” Rhetoric aside, though, there is at this point no sense that he and his inside team grasp the structural enormity of what’s at stake, nor have they come up with proposals to do the heavy lifting necessary to free America from the monopoly yoke. Nonetheless, farm, labor, consumer, environmental, and other progressive advocates should move a broad, aggressive anti-monopoly initiative to the top tier of our change agenda, because it can produce big positive results for nearly every grassroots constituency.

An old political truism notes that, “Where there’s a will, there are 1,000 won’ts.” And what a hurricane of won’ts swirled out of Washington’s power centers in March to pummel Joe Biden! Corporate lobbyists and their congressional hirelings howled at him for declaring that he would seek a tax increase on corporations to pay for the essential, overdue job of repairing and expanding our nation’s antiquated, dilapidated infrastructure. Blowhard Mitch McConnell, the GOP’s senate leader, blustered that poor corporate America should not be singled out to bear this “burden.” But wait –Mitch singled out the corporate giants in 2017 to receive a massive cut in their tax rate, so even with a slight increase now they’ll still pay much less than regular people. Also, the giants wormed loopholes in the law to cut their taxes further. Indeed, 55 of the biggest, most profitable corporations paid zero in US income taxes last. As Bernie Sanders points out: “If you paid $120 for a pair of [Nike] shoes, you paid more to Nike than it paid in federal income taxes over the past 3 years, while it made $4.1 billion in profits.” Mitch and his fellow hypocrites cynically profess they support restoring America’s infrastructure – but, he says, asking our corporate political funders to pay more “is not going to get support from our side.” So, who do they want to pay for it? You. Working people and the poor! Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican and a leader of Mitch’s team, points to putting more user fees on drivers and adding taxes on consumers as the way to go. To see a list of other major corporate scofflaws who’ve been pocketing billions in profits, yet paying zilch for the upkeep of America, go to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy: ITEP.org.

It’s time for America to go back to the future – a future of true greatness created by a people united to build a strong nation for the Common Good. From the start of our United States, Americans have backed leaders who dared to do big public projects – Jefferson, Lincoln, TR, FDR, Truman, Ike, JFK, and LBJ all dared to achieve bold goals. It’s only since Ronald Reagan’s “government-is-evil” demagoguery that our presidents and lawmakers shriveled to no-can-do mediocrities, unwilling even to try tackling America’s big needs or invest in our people’s unlimited possibilities. Their failure is why our nation’s infrastructure – once world-class – has deteriorated to an embarrassing 16th in the world. It’s hard to muster any national pride in chanting: “We’re Number 16!” But – surprise! – here comes Joe, a lifelong, go-slow Democrat, unexpectedly proposing a get-serious, roll-up-our-sleeves, $2-trillion package of investments to modernize, and extend Americas collapsing infrastructure. In addition to roads, bridges, and dams, it gives a long overdue boost to such needs as rural high-speed broadband, replacing lead water pipes, building clean energy systems, constructing affordable housing, upgrading public transit systems, increasing home healthcare for the elderly and providing affordable childcare facilities – all geared to creating good union jobs and lifting local economies. Even more transformative than the particular components is Biden’s back-to-the-future method of paying for this Rebuild America agenda by returning to progressive taxation. Instead of the same old no-tax, laissez-fairyland extremism that Washington has practiced for 40 years (leading to the deep infrastructure hole we’re now in), Biden will at long last demand that multinational corporate behemoths stop dodging their tax obligations to America. It’s the same fair-taxation policy that funded our nation’s real needs in the past, while also increasing productivity and raising living standards for millions of working families. Let’s do it again!

“Those in the know” say that We the People should forget any progressive fantasy that – at long last – Washington might finally produce the kind of bold FDR-style agenda that America needs. They smugly lecture us that recalcitrant Republicans in Congress, not to mention a swarm of corporate lobbyists, are opposed to progressive change, so who could get it passed? Here’s an idea: Try the people themselves. Those in the know don’t seem to know it (or don’t want us to know it), but big majorities across grassroots America are strongly in favor of the fundamental changes that Washington elites are rejecting. For example: Two-thirds of America (including a majority of moderate Republicans) say “Yes!” to doubling the minimum wage. 72 percent of the people, including 46 percent of professed Republicans, shout their approval for Medicare for all. Eight out of 10 Americans, including strong majorities of Republicans, support a paid family leave program like every other developed nation provides for their people. What about increasing taxes on the rich, expanding Medicaid for poor families, raising teacher pay, spending more for early childhood education? Yes, yes, yes, yes say majorities, not just in blue states, but also in GOP strongholds like Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah. These are not just poll numbers, but solid ideas embraced last year by a broad cross-section of voters in ballot elections across the country. For example, Florida voters enacted a constitutional initiative to up the state’s minimum pay to $15, with “yeas” topping “nays” by a whopping margin of more than 20 points – making it more popular than either Trump or Biden. Instead of fearing the people, Democratic leaders need to get out of Washington and join them. Let’s rally and organize the power of outsiders to produce transformative policies of, by, and for the people.

The past year proves that a lot of conventional economic wisdom is neither true nor wise. For example: “We don’t have the money.” The power elites tell us it would be nice to do the big-ticket reforms America needs, but the money just isn’t there. Then a pandemic slammed into America, and suddenly trillions of dollars gushed out of Washington for everything from subsidizing meatpackers to developing vaccines, revealing that the money is there. “We can’t increase the federal debt!” Yet, Trump and the Republican Congress didn’t hesitate to shove the national debt through the roof in 2017 to let a few corporations and billionaires pocket a trillion-dollar tax giveaway. So, if those drunken spenders can use federal borrowing to make the likes of Amazon and Zuckerberg richer, we can borrow funds for such productive national needs as infrastructure investment and quality education for all. “The rich are the ‘makers’ who contribute the most to society.” This silly myth quickly melted right in front of us as soon as Señor Coronavirus arrived, making plain that the most valuable people are nurses, grocery clerks, teachers, postal employees, and millions of other mostly-low-wage people. So, let’s capitalize on the moment to demand policies that reward these grassroots makers instead of Wall Street’s billionaire takers. “Tax cuts drive economic growth for all.” They always claim that freeing corporations from the “burden” of taxes will encourage CEOs to invest in worker productivity and – voila – wages will miraculously rise. This scam has never worked for anyone but the scammers, and it’s now obvious to the great majority of workers that the way to increase wages – Hello – is to increase wages! Enact a $15 minimum wage, restore collective bargaining, etc. and workers will pocket more, spend more, and the economy will rise. Percolate-up economics works – trickle-down does not.

Ralph Waldo Emerson told of a dinner guest who went on and on about the virtue of honesty, offering his own life as a model of perfect rectitude. “The louder he talked of his honor,” said Emerson, “the faster we counted our spoons.” That’s my reaction to the cacophony of phony piety arising from Republican governors and legislators who are trying to enact more than 250 new state laws to stop Black, Latino, Asian-American, Indigenous, and other non-Caucasian voters from casting ballots. Yet they proclaim, “We’re not racists, we’re righteous crusaders protecting the sanctity of the vote.” Really? So why are they specifically targeting people of color with their repressive voting restrictions? For example, panicky Republican lawmakers in Georgia tried to outlaw any early voting on Sundays. Odd. Why? It’s a flagrantly-racist attack on the Black church. For years, a joyous civic tradition called “Souls to the Polls” has played out in Southern Black churches on Sundays prior to election day. After the sermon and prayers, congregants, ministers, musicians, and others in the church family travel in a caravan to early voting locations to cast ballots. It turns voting into a civic, spiritual, and fun experience. What kind of shriveled soul tries to kill that? Apparently, the same shameful souls in the Georgia GOP who want to stop local groups from providing water and snacks to citizens forced to wait for hours in line to vote. They’re actually trying to make it a crime to give water to thirsty voters! Hey, Republicans: What would Jesus do? This is Jim Hightower saying… Excuse me, but voting in America should not be made a misery. The goal (and duty) of every public official ought to be maximizing voter turnout – after all, the more Americans who vote, the stronger our democracy. But there’s the ugly political truth – Republican officials no longer support democracy.

Hey, you, get away from those polling places! We don’t want your kind here! Scram! That’s a stupid, shameful, and ultimately self-defeating political message, yet it’s being pushed as the official anti-voter electoral strategy of Republicans. Admitting that they can’t get majorities to vote for their collection of corporate lackeys, conspiracy theorists, and bigoted old white guys, the GOP hierarchy’s Great Hope is to shove as many Democratic voters as possible out of our elections. They’re banking on a blitz of bureaucratic bills they’re now trying to ram through nearly every state legislature to intimidate, divert, and otherwise deny eligible voters their most fundament democratic right. Their main targets are people of color, but they’re also pushing to keep students, senior citizens, union households, and poor communities from voting. Unable to come up with any actual need for these autocratic restraints, the GOP vote thieves are fraudulently exclaiming in mock horror that millions of illegal immigrants, dead people, Chinese, and even pets are voting! “Lock down the polls!” they cry. Again and again, these absurd claims have been thoroughly investigated – even by Republican judges, committees, media, etc. – and repeatedly they’ve proven to be… well, absurd. Let’s be blunt: You’re more likely to find Big Foot than you are to find a case of mass vote fraud in America. Even some GOP politicos have quit pretending that they’re searching for The Big Cheat, instead bluntly making an overt right-wing ideological argument for subverting democracy: “Everybody shouldn’t be voting,” explained Rep. John Kavanaugh, the Republican chair of Arizona’s election committee. Slipping deeper into doctrinaire doo-doo, he asserts that it’s not just the number of votes that should matter in an election – “we have to look at the quality of votes,” too. Call me cynical, but I’m guessing that most Democratic voters would fall into his “low-quality” category.

In CorporateSpeak, there are no “job cuts.” Instead, firings are blandly referred to as “employment adjustments.” Now, though, corporate wordsmiths will need a whole new thesaurus of euphemisms, for masses of job cuts are coming for employees in the higher echelons of the corporate structure. Don’t look now, but an unanticipated result of the ongoing pandemic is that it has given cover for CEOs to speed up the adoption of highly-advanced RPAs (Robotic Process Automation) to replace employees once assumed to be immune from displacement. As one analyst told a New York Times reporter, “With RPA you can build a bot that costs $10,000 a year and take out two to four humans.” Prior to the COVID crisis, many top executives feared a public backlash if they pushed automation too far too fast. But, ironically, the economic collapse caused by the pandemic has so discombobulated the workplace and diverted public attention that corporate bosses have been emboldened to rush ahead. While the nationwide shut-down of offices and furloughing of employees has caused misery for millions, one happy purveyor of RPA systems notes that it has “massively raised awareness among executives about the variety of work that no longer requires human involvement.” He cheerfully declares: “We think any business process can be automated,” advising corporate bosses that half to two-thirds of all the tasks being done at their companies can be done by machines. This is Jim Hightower saying… Conventional corporate wisdom blithely preaches that all new technologies create more jobs than they kill, but even those pollyannish preachers are now conceding that this robotic automation of white-collar jobs is being imposed so suddenly, widely, and stealthily that losses will crush any gains. “We haven’t hit the exponential point of this stuff yet,” warns an alarmed analyst. “And when we do, it’s going to be dramatic.”

Hunters have come up with euphemisms to make what they do sound… well, less unpleasant. For example, animals aren’t killed, they’re “harvested.” Corporate America is now adopting this verbal ploy, for CEOs urgently need to soften the image of their constant hunt for ways to kill jobs. Their urgency is that they’re now pushing a huge new surge in cuts – this time targeting college-educated, white-collar professionals. Their weapon is the same sort of neutron bomb they’ve used to dispatch millions of blue-collar workers: Robots. But robot is a negative term, so it’s been replaced with a nondescript acronym: RPAs – “Robotic Process Automation.” These sophisticated automatons are armed with artificial intelligence, enabling them to take over cognitive work that had been the niche of such highly-paid humans as financial analysts, lawyers, engineers, managers, and doctors. More than just an incremental extension of a long, slow automation process, this is a Big Bang. It’s presently ripping through the workforce at warp speed and most of America’s vulnerable employees have no idea of what’s coming. In a survey of corporate executives last year, nearly 80 percent of them had already put some forms of RPA in place, with an additional 16 percent planning to do so within three years. That’s 96 percent of corporate employers! McKinsey, the world’s biggest corporate strategy consultant, had calculated in 2019 that the thinking robotics would displace 37 million US workers by 2030. Now, seeing the current corporate stampede to impose RPAs on US workplaces, McKinsey has upped its projection to 45 million job losses in this decade. Returning to the hunting analogy, professional jobs requiring human-level judgement have been presumed to be beyond the range of robotic firepower. But, as one labor economists now notes, with the mass deployment of RPA technology, “that type of work is much more in the kill path.”

When corporate executives are absurdly hypocritical, yet so obtuse that they don’t even realize it, is it still hypocrisy… or are they just dimwitted? Consider the histrionics emanating from corporate bunkers over rising public approval for the idea that nature be given legal rights that are enforceable in courts. The Rights of Nature movement argues that if, say, a mining conglomerate decapitates a mountain, that injured citizen of our natural world ought to have its day in court. “Outrageous,” shriek the honchos of Corporate America – the courts are for people, not for pieces of property! Hello, hypocrisy. After all, a corporation is not a person – it has no brain, no pulse, no soul, no life. It’s not even a real piece of property, just an inert document printed by a state. Yet, the owners of that piece of paper claim that it magically bestows “personhood” on their syndicate, giving it the legal and political rights of real people. Yet, these “paper people” now cry that Earth’s actual living creatures can’t have any legal rights because they are just property. Excuse me, but a single drop of water has more life in it than all the corporations in the world. Also, let’s note that the long evolution of law even had to be enlightened to recognize that such “property” as slaves were human beings with fundamental rights. The body of legal (and moral) rights has grown, and it enhances our own humanity to recognize that we and nature are one. Crass corporate exploitation, on the other hand, diminishes all living things, threatening life itself. Those who reflexively mock the idea of legal standing for marshes, grasslands, forest networks, and other wildlife – might consider taking a moment by a quiet stream in the woods to ponder the question: Does nature need us, or do we need her?

There’s a white oak tree in Athens, Georgia, that is not owned by anyone. It’s an autonomous entity – known as the “Tree that Owns Itself.” Around the 1820s, the owner of the property wrote a formal deed proclaiming: “…in consideration of the great love I bear this tree and the great desire I have for its protection, for all time, I convey entire possession of itself and all land within eight feet of the tree on all sides.” Age finally took its toll, though, and a 1942 windstorm downed the tree. Yet, its autonomy lives on! Residents took a seedling from the original and planted it in the same spot – and that offspring is still there, known as the “Son of the Tree that Owns Itself.” What if all trees and other natural ecosystems had a legal right to exist, thrive, evolve, and regenerate? This concept of nature existing in its own right as living entities is the essence of a rapidly spreading Rights of Nature movement. All across our country (and around the world), people wake up to find that faraway financial elites have come in by stealth, using legalistic ruses to poison local waters, strip forests and fields, defile the air, and otherwise destroy our natural surroundings. But what if the law was balanced to let those natural surroundings have their own say and redress the harm done to them? Just as corporations have lawyers, rivers, forests, etc. could be provided with legal counsel to sue corporations and governments that mindlessly contaminate and even kill them. The idea is taking hold. Last November, a whopping 89 percent of voters in Orange County, Florida – fed up with decades of industrial pollution of their waterways – shouted YES! to a Rights of Nature initiative. To learn more, go to Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund: celdf.org.

After looking into one of their main issues, I have to agree with Republicans: Our elections are being rigged. Anyone who takes an honest look can see that the electoral process is being stolen in broad daylight. By Republican lawmakers. In state after state, GOP governors and legislators are on a rampage to rig the system so you can’t vote. By “you,” I mean you African-Americans, Latinx voters, Asian-Americans, Indigenous Peoples, and practically all other non-white citizens. Also, you seniors, union members, poor people, students, immigrant families, and others with a tendency to vote for Democrats. Fraudulently shouting “fraud!” GOP officials insist that they must steal your democratic right to vote in order to protect the “sanctity” of the vote! They are actually confessing their own embarrassing weakness and political ineptitude by admitting: “We can’t win!” Their line-up of squirrely, increasingly-kooky candidates – and their anti-people, corporate serving agenda – have no ability to draw majority support. So, their only hope to be elected is to jerry-rig America’s democratic process with barriers, locks, bans, etc. to shut millions of citizens out of their polling places. Their 7-million-vote defeat in last year’s presidential race has spooked the Republican minority into a stampede of voter suppression initiatives this year. The Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks such maneuvers, reports that at least 253 bills have been introduced in 43 states to further obstruct Americans from casting ballots. These new schemes are aggressively repressive, including preventing absentee voting, cutting early voting, eliminating mail-in voting, restricting the number and convenience of polling locations, and even allowing legislators to toss the voters’ choice in presidential elections and declare another candidate the victor. This is pathetic, disgraceful political thuggery – not only stealing people’s birthright, but stealing democracy from America itself. To help reject their shameful corruption of elections, go to CommonCause.org.

In February, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz ran off to a luxury resort in sunny Cancún, Mexico, during the deep freeze that devastated millions of his constituents. But I wasn’t mad that Ted fled; what upset me was that the government let him back into our country. Cruz is, after all, the two-legged, self-aggrandizing ego that arrogantly and illegally tried to cancel the ballots of millions of voters in last year’s presidential election. Then, he helped dupe a crowd of Trumpeteers into storming our nation’s Capitol in a violent and silly attempt to seize control of our government by force. Now the wannabe autocrat is demanding that the Supreme Court suppress the people’s democratic will. He’s teamed-up with the sour old corporate plutocrat, Mitch McConnell, to back a ploy by Arizona Republicans to disenfranchise Latino, Indigenous American, and Black voters. Cruz and McConnell demand that the Court’s partisan Republican justices gut America’s landmark Voting Rights Act, which prohibits states from altering election rules to give minority voters less opportunity to participate in the political process than Anglos. Arizona’s Republican lawmakers had passed a nasty provision declaring that any ballot cast in the wrong precinct, no matter how valid, must be tossed in the trash, rather than merely allocating it to the voter’s correct precinct. This almost entirely affects people of color, for GOP election officials play nefarious games with them, such as frequently moving their voting places, often at the last minute with little notice. Instead of pushing their party to try winning these peoples’ votes, Ted and Mitch simply want to eliminate toe voters. They’ve asked the Court to nullify the bothersome Voting Rights Act so their party can freely lock out minority voters. The greatest threat to our democracy is not a violent mob, but a legalistic coup by thugs like Ted Cruz.

I don’t know if Nero really fiddled while Rome burned, but it certainly is true that Texas Senator Ted Cruz fiddled around while his state froze. While Ted fled Texas for the warmth of the Ritz-Carlton resort in Cancún, Mexico, dozens of his constituents died in the 5-day deep freeze, and millions more suffered physically and financially. This disaster was not the result of a polar vortex, but of a small-minded vortex of right-wing political hokem that puts the interests of a few energy profiteers over the well-being of the people. Among Texans now paying the price of the GOP’s fealty to corporate interests is a hard-hit group that gets little media notice: Small, local farmers. I’ve had the privilege of working with these hardy, innovative people since my days as Texas Agriculture Commissioner. They are America’s most productive, most ecologically-conscious, and most community-spirited ag producers – yet state and national farm policies serve industrial farm giants. For example, tens of billions of our tax dollars are paid out each year in crop insurance, but the program is not geared to the realities and needs of small, local, diversified farms, few of which get any assistance. Indeed, the bulk of payments go to those least in need – the big-acreage, multimillion-dollar agribusiness operators, including Wall Street syndicates. So, in my area of Central Texas, such efficient, enterprising farms as Boggy Creek, Eden East, and Hat and Heart lost row after row of veggies to the killer storm. That means they lost the money invested to produce those crops, lost the money they would’ve gotten by selling them, and will have to find money from somewhere to put in a new crop. None of them will get a dime from the federal program. Not only must we replace our corporate-controlled electric grid, but also our corporate-controlled ag policy – and our corporate-controlled public officials.