We might expect that corporate billionaires and Koch-funded Republican right-wingers would be howl-at-the-moon opponents of a wealth tax, Medicare-for-All, and other big, progressive ideas to help improve the circumstances of America’s workaday majority. But… Democrats?...
For $3.5 Trillion a year, shouldn’t we Americans have a world-class healthcare system? Yet, while we spend the most of any advanced nation in the world to get care (more than $10,000 a year per...
Our society has coined expressions like “philanthropist” to encourage and hail people’s charitable spirit. Look on the flip side of that shiny coin of generosity, however, and you’ll find that its base substance is societal...
As Lyndon Johnson used to say about special interests trying to get his support to pass some blatantly self-serving legislation: “They can’t make chicken salad out of chicken sh*t.” Yet, chicken sh*t is all that...
Right before our eyes, an invaluable American species is fast disappearing from view. Kar-toon-us A-mer-i-kan-as. These are the newspaper cartoonists who’ve long delighted readers and infuriated power elites. And there’s nothing natural about their sudden...
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...
The morning after December’s horrific nighttime tornado smashed a huge Amazon warehouse in Illinois, killing six workers, corporate CEO Jeff Bezos issued a personal video message. Was he distressed and sorrowful? No, Boss Bezos was...
Corporate America has proudly elevated good moral values to a special place. That place is the trash can. Indeed, free market gurus assert that the only ethical obligation a corporation has to society is to...
Can antibiotic medicines, long hailed as miracle drugs, be too much of a good thing? Yes. Two factors are at work here. First, bacteria (one of the earliest forms of life on Earth) are miracles...
In 1972, I was part of a nationwide campaign that came close to getting the US Senate to reject Earl Butz, Richard Nixon’s choice for secretary of agriculture. A coalition of grassroots farmers, consumers, and...