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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
As the winter solstice nears, people around the world are celebrating end-of-the-year holidays that, while widely diverse, share the ideal... Read more...
"Thinking" robots promise economic and social devastation. Is this our chance to liberate ourselves from hundreds of years of corporate servitude? With concepts like Universal Basic Income coming to the forefront, we may have the opportunity to finally focus on getting a life, not just getting a "job." Read more...
The invasion of today's workplaces by these digital hordes is much bigger, far more sweeping in scope, and coming at us much faster than last century's invasion of factory assembly lines by mechanical robots. This change portends an economic-cultural-political earthquake, fracturing our society's assumptions about the value (and virtue) of work, the possibility of upward mobility, America's commitment to egalitarianism, and even how we humans define ourselves. Read more...
Working. Poor. In our US of A, those words ought never be juxtaposed. The very concept of paying poverty wages in... Read more...