National – Jim Hightower

It’s obvious to even a casual observer that the Lord works wonders in mysterious ways. Just ask Jim Inhofe. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who chairs the U.S. Senate’s environment committee, is the favorite pet of corporate polluters whose industrial emissions are cited by scientists as the leading cause of global warming. Not only has Inhofe […]

While liberal and conservative groups alike are poring over the record of Judge Sam Alito to decipher where he stands on Roe v. Wade, who are those guys over in the shadows, grinning from ear to ear? Ah, those are the executives and lobbyists of corporate America, and they don’t care whether Bush’s new Supreme […]

It’s Thanksgiving Day — have you hugged a farmer yet? Actually, we need to do a lot more than hug those family farmers who bring us such a bounty of good food, for they’ve become endangered species in the Brave New AgWorld of industrialized, conglomeratized, and globalized food production that our policy-makers are pushing. Thanks […]

Have you heard of Otto Rohwedder? He’s the guy who perfected the bread slicer, back in 1928. Well, if you can come up with the best idea since sliced bread, it could be worth $100,000 to you. That’s the top prize being offered in a unique and useful competition sponsored by the Service Employees International […]

For the second time this year, Congress said no to an increase in the minimum wage, leaving it — and millions of workers — stuck at the poverty level of $5.15 an hour. That’s $10,500 a year for full-time work. Yes, this is the same Congress that gave itself a pay raise in July, making […]

In most American towns, chamber-of-commerce booster types measure the town’s status by whether it has such corporate symbols as a Wal-Mart or McDonald’s. For me, however, the true measure of a town’s vitality comes down to whether it has three noncorporate essentials: a vibrant farmers’ market, a good local pub, and an independent community-based bookstore. […]

With that twisted macho smirk of his, George W. Bush keeps telling us that he’s a “war president.” So how’s the chief doing? Let’s do Bush by the numbers: • Number of American troops killed so far in his war of lies in Iraq: 1,987, and rising daily. • Number of wounded: 14,755, and rising. […]

What if businesspeople started saying no to the prevailing corporate ethic that your business must always be getting bigger to be a “winner”? Well, it’s happening. It gets little coverage by a media constantly fawning over the barons who run the slam-bam expansionist operations such as Amazon and Starbucks, but a quiet rebellion is spreading […]

You’ve probably never heard of Mike Johanns, but he could make you deathly sick. Johanns was a Nebraska politico who was plucked from obscurity by corporate agribusiness early this year to be the U.S. secretary of agriculture. Apparently his chief duty there is to serve the corporate interests. Take mad-cow disease. Anyone who contracts the […]

In recent weeks, on campuses all across America, students have been enrolling in university. Ah, what an experience — the camaraderie of college spirit, the titillating possibilities of higher learning! Then these eager innocents go to buy their textbooks, and — wham! — the dispiriting reality of corporate greed whacks them upside the head. Students, […]