corporate greed

Abbott, DeSantis & the Extremely Extreme GOP

Most intolerable is the steady drip-drip-drip of power it drains from America's democratic ideals and commitment to the Common Good. I can't say that Abbott and DeSantis are the worst that the GOP will try to put in the White House in 2024, but either one is a signpost of an increasingly assertive American fascism. Read more...

How the right wing captured the Supreme Court

Today’s six-member GOP majority has surrendered all claim to being an impartial force for justice. Instead, the GOP’s network of corporate and right-wing operatives has fabricated and weaponized the court to increase their power over the rest of us. Read more...

It's an endangered species: Save Kar-toon-us A-mer-i-kan-us!

Because cartooning is an expression of the human spirit that has been irrepressible since cave drawings, generation after generation of pen-and-ink champions of democracy have blossomed. Moreover, the general public's appreciation and demand for the cartoonist's sharp-pointed honesty and satire have never flagged, even increasing whenever the artists come under public assault by autocrats, plutocrats, theocrats, cultists, racists, demagogs, screwballs, and assorted other censors. Read more...

It’s time for dinner democracy!

Should the future of America's ag economy be controlled by industrializers and monopolizers who view food strictly as a profit center to be manipulated by and for the few? Or, should the future be modeled on the principles of grassroots producers, artisans, chefs, and consumers who understand that food is an essential element of life, community, and culture to be shared for the Common Good? Read more...

We’re humans, not corporate cogs

When looking for a sign of the times, sometimes it might literally be on a sign. That was true in Lincoln, NE, on July 9, when the tall billboard in front of a Burger King boldly informed customers: "We all quit. Sorry for the inconvenience." The impetus for the workers' mass public resignation was the "We're not gonna take it anymore" rebellion that is sweeping across workaday America and fueling a rejuvenation of unionization. Read more...

Exxon tries to BUST a union

Today's Exxon executives have ambushed Golden Triangle unions. In a little-reported maneuver, they launched a crude attack this spring on the Steelworkers, attempting to bust the union, disempower the middle-class workforce, and entrench corporate autocracy in the oil industry. What's occurring in Beaumont is not a union strike, but a corporate lockout. Read more...
Greenpeace activists hang from a bridge in Houston

New corporate-protection laws are stomping on our most basic rights

Unbeknownst to the general public (and still largely undiscovered by national media), oil giants and other multinational corporations have quietly colluded with the legislators and governors they've purchased. Together, they've rammed through a series of autocratic state laws criminalizing our right to protest at sites they imperiously designated "critical infrastructure." Encompassed in the sweeping lockdown inherent in this often-specious designation are public demonstrations that the sneaky new laws defined as "criminal interference." Read more...

It’s time for a (teeny) tax on wealth

The rapidly widening divide between the rich and the rest of us is neither natural nor accidental. America needs a "Lizzie"--a way to re-balance the tax burden fairly between wages and wealth. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has taken the lead on this fundamental democratic reform by proposing a return to America's historic tax principle of "ability to pay." Her idea is to shut down the elites' shameful tax dodging with a straight-forward tax on extreme wealth. Read more...

Welcome to our late-summer picnic!

In these sultry, dog days of August, the Lowdown presents a summer picnic of political snacks, meaty developments, both sweet and sour sides, and--of course--some mixed nuts. Read more...
A silhouette of Trump against green streams of code

Let’s decode Trump’s Afta-Nafta trade deal

Global trade deals are and always have been large-scale hustles, filled with hypocrisy, deceit, and greed. Promoted as fair and good for all, they're invariably rigged with profiteering schemes that lock into law advantages for corporations over the common good of consumers, the environment, labor, independent businesses, governments, and all other democratic forces. The USMCA is no different-- and is, in fact, worse. Read more...
Farmer walking away from harvested, dried out crops

The devastation of farm country is biting us all on the butt

A massive depression has been building for years across our vast rural expanse, but don't feel alone if you didn't know, for most of our media and political establishments have failed to notice, much less inform the general public. In America's power centers, farming is almost entirely ignored as something arcane and "out there"--and out of mind. Read more...
20YearsOfTheLowdown

The People are revolting! (in the best sense of the word): A 20th Birthday Retrospective

Time flies when you're having fun, so those of us who merrily pull together this little newsletter each month were surprised recently when it dawned on us that--Holy Moly!--we've reached a milestone of populist pamphleteering: The 20th anniversary of The Lowdown. This retrospective issue is meant to be a contemplation on the progressive movement itself--what it's up against and how far it has progressed in these two decades. Read more...
2018-06_gentrificationzone

Gentrification shreds the fabric of our cities while making rich developers even richer

To the amazement of longtime locals in many parts of America, gentrification has surged in recent years, suddenly swamping whole communities in US urban centers, as well as in close-in suburbs and quaint small towns. The developers, bankers, and public officials pushing such incursions try to soften the destructive impacts of gentrification by cloaking the term with euphemisms like “revitalization” and “enrichment”–implying progress for all and a beautiful community uplift. In fact, though, it has nearly always been a code word for a particularly ugly form of class war. Read more...
2018-05_EconAgenda_collage

What are progressives fighting *for*?

Most voters want BIG populist changes in government policy that will lift up average Americans and hold down corporate greed and abuse. One major proposal to do just that is the 11-point Economic Agenda for America's Future drafted by a broad coalition of some 80 progressive thinkers and doers. This document is both a to-do list for restoring economic democracy and a rallying cry to move today's burgeoning democratic movement from mere resistance to insistence on a bold, percolate-up alternative to Republican/Democratic trickle-down economics. Read more...
Koch Brothers

The Koch Klan is funding a stealthy war against the principle of the Common Good

Since the middle of the last century, greedy schemers have mounted a sneaky, slow motion coup of attrition, moving methodically from one political venue to another, donning multiple organizational guises to strike down a law here, reverse a public policy there, demonize "others," and ambush progressive groups all along the way. Its chief instigators are the multibillionaire Koch boys, Charles and David, who've been consistently financing and implementing this ongoing assault since the 1960s. Read more...

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