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.
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.
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.
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.