I never dreamed of growing up to be a political activist/commentator, but here I am, and it’s worked out pretty well for me. I’ve been lucky enough to have a voice in public matters and eke out a modest living running my mouth as an independent populist agitator. Still, I have to confess to …
Corporate America has proudly elevated good moral values to a special place. That place is the trash can.
Some years ago, a young, sorta-hippyish couple knocked on my front door. They had noticed that I had fig trees in the yard, laden with summer fruit. If I wasn’t going to pick them all, they asked, could they harvest some figs? Since I was about to take a trip, I said: Sure, have at ’em.
’Tis the season, right? Traditionally, this time of year celebrates spirituality and festivities — including Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa.
Sometimes, when watching Congress in action, I can’t decide whether to laugh, cry or check myself into an insane asylum.
The corporate hierarchy has long tried to diminish labor activism in the United States by insisting that strikes and other workplace agitations have never had broad support or impact because they are fundamentally un-American.
For many people, the animals they adopt and love become more like family members than pets. We have deep relationships, with cats, dogs, parrots, goats, horses and other fellow critters — who at least pretend to love us back, providing comfort and joy all around.
Here are two terms that you don’t expect to see together: “the state of Alabama” and “progressive leader.” And yet — even with its well-earned reputation as a bastion of Jim Crow voter theft, plutocratic anti-worker policies and right-wing nutballism — the Camellia State has flowered as a mo…
‘If you think education is expensive, try ignorance,” the old bumper sticker says; yet for decades national and state lawmakers have flaunted their ignorance of what makes a good society by stupidly shortchanging our investment in our youngest minds.
We’ve got the Academy Awards, the Emmys and Grammys… but what should we call the award for the most extraordinary performance by a corporate profiteer? How about the “Sleazy,” with winners getting a solid gold sculpture of a middle finger? There were so many worthy contenders, but one corpor…
It’s been a hell of a hot summer, exploding the top off thermometers with triple-digit readings across the country. As we’re learning, week after week of this debilitating heat intensifies wildfires, causes electric grids to fail, kills millions of wild animals (including fish!), burns up cr…
As a writer, I get stuck every so often straining for the right words to tell my story. Over the years, though, I’ve learned when to quit tying myself into mental knots over sentence construction, instead stepping back and rethinking where my story is going.
America’s economic and political inequality has led workaday Americans to exclaim: “The system is broken. Let’s fix it!”
Tick-tick-tick… each sweep of Big Tech’s clock enhances corporate power — but its hands also sweep away more of our civil rights.
When I was just a tyke, cowboy actors were marketed as role models for little backyard cowpokes like me, and we could send off to get a certificate making us “Pals of the Saddle” or some such with Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy or others.
Mega-investor Warren Buffett once held a big portfolio of daily and weekly newspapers, and he specialized in squeezing out competitors so each held a local monopoly. Then he’d chop staff and news content, letting him glean annual profit margins above 30 percent.
Most people believe the American economy is being rigged by and for bankers, CEOs and other super-rich elites, because… well, because it is!
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.”
‘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 …
Here’s a thought-provoking bumper sticker: “The system is fixed. We must break it.”
A recent headline blared: “Labor shortages end when wages rise.”
Woody Guthrie had a lot to say about the greed of bankers who made crop loans at usurious interest rates to hardscrabble farmers, then foreclosed on them when they couldn’t pay off the loans, leaving thousands of farm families homeless. Woody mocked them with a sarcastic anthem, singing “I’m…
‘Outrageous,” screeched the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “It doesn’t feel fair,” whimpered a top corporate executive.
These days, the haughty rich in our country have developed such an arrogant sense of entitlement that they’ve gone from being merely irritating to infuriating.
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.
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.
‘Those in the know” say that We the People should forget any progressive fantasy that — at long last — Washington might 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 lobbyis…
In CorporateSpeak, there are no “job cuts.” Instead, firings are blandly referred to as “employment adjustments.”
When corporate ex-executives are absurdly hypocritical, yet so obtuse that they don’t even realize it, is it still hypocrisy… or are they just dimwitted?
After looking into one of their main issues, I have to agree with Republicans: Our elections are being rigged.
Grassroots progressives put Biden in the White House… but what do we get for that?
What is it about billionaires and multimillionaires that make them both self-entitled and clueless about the impacts of their greed?
In a world that’s clogged and choking with a massive overdose of plastic trash, you’ll be heartened to learn that governments and industries are teaming up to respond forcefully to this planetary crisis.
Many of us read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies in high school — and it’s still being taught. The 1954 novel depicts the gradual descent into barbaric darkness by a group of English schoolboys shipwrecked on a small, deserted island. Its portrayal of innate human depravity was hailed at …
During the hectic holiday shopping season, Jeff Bezos’ Amazon.com may seem like a great option, especially for us procrastinators. Anything you want can be shipped directly to your doorstep. All it takes is a few clicks and — of course— some of your hard-earned money.
Many years ago, literary critic Dorothy Parker skewered an unfortunate author with her sharp wit: “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly,” she said. “It should be thrown with great force!”
Let’s say you’re a millionaire. That’s a lot of money, right? Now let’s say you’re a billionaire. That’s a lot more money! But how much more?
Little known fact: In more and more races, the GOP doesn’t have broad enough appeal to fairly produce an election majority, so it has resorted to rigging the system so a minority prevails.
Shortly after taking office, Trump puffed himself up in full Trumpian pomposity to proclaim: “We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else.”
How nasty is the Republican Party’s massive campaign to thwart democracy? Ask the good people of Florida.
Is it really so hard? Voting, I mean — smooth democratic elections with all citizens able to easily cast their ballots and with every ballot fairly counted. Is that too much for people to ask?
