Every religion prioritizes care for the needy. Christianity’s Benedictine Rule, for example, puts care of the sick atop the moral order, “above and before every other duty.”
Really — even above the holy Wall Street mandate that medical and insurance conglomerates must squeeze every last penny of profits out of America’s corporate-care system? Well, gosh, they say, let’s not go crazy with this religious stuff! There’s morality ... and then there’s business.
Consider how today’s monopolized and financialized hospital networks treat nurses — the high-touch frontline people who do the most to put care in “health care.” Paid a pittance, thousands of nurses across America are now organizing and unionizing against the inequities of this system. The nurses’ core grievance, however, is not their pay, but the gross understaffing imposed on them and their patients by profiteering hospital chains.
In a national survey, more than half of nurses feel “used up” and “emotionally drained.” Why? Primarily because executives keep goosing up profits by eliminating care providers, making it impossible for the remaining, stretched-out staff to meet their own high moral standard of care. That’s demoralizing for nurses ... and deadly for patients.
Yet, corporate-care lobbyists loudly squawk that hospital chains can’t afford to pay fair wages and fully staff-up. Ironically, one of the loudest squawkers is the hospital mega-chain, Ascension, a Catholic church offshoot proclaiming to be “rooted in the loving ministry of Jesus as healer.” Some healer. In a devilish partnership with a Wall Street huckster, Ascension has been slashing nursing staffs while paying its CEO $13 million a year, hoarding $18 billion in cash and allotting a pitiful 2% of its budget for charitable care of the poor.
What the hell! To help battle health care greed, go to NationalNursesUnited.org.
We Texans are long-accustomed to enduring stormy outbursts of corruption among our top state legislators. The spectacle of lawmakers taking corporate bribes to provide legislative favors, tax breaks, government contracts and such is as common as spring tornadoes — and even more destructive to the public good.
The state’s prevailing ethical standard was articulated several years ago when a powerful legislator (nicknamed “Bull of Brazos”) was caught personally profiting from a bill he was pushing: “I’d just make a little bit of money,” he explained dismissively. “I wouldn’t make a whole lot.”
Before rolling your eyes at Crazy Texas, though, consider the sneak attack that corporate America is now making to legalize the wholesale bribery of every public official in America. Their ploy is a cynical effort to redefine bribery. Paying officials to do corporate favors, they insist, should only be considered a bribe if the payoff is arranged before the favor is done. Yes, with a straight face, these finaglers claim that if the payment comes after an official delivers the goods, it’s not a bribe but simply a “gratuity.” Like tipping a waiter for good service.
Even the flimflammers Congress would balk at voting for such a blatant perversion of language and public integrity. So, the corporate connivers have slinked over to the corrupt plutocratic partisans on the Supreme Court, beseeching them to — Hocus Pocus! — autocratically decree that wrong is right. And they probably will, since a majority of the Supremes have themselves accepted corrupt freebies from corporate patrons. Take Clarence Thomas, please! He’s been given millions in corporate bribes (excuse me, “gratuities”), so he’s hardly an unbiased judge of official corruption.
To fight the stench of this legal freak show, go to Campaign Legal Center: campaignlegal.org.
Woe is us (the American people) for having our jewel of a national Postal Service saddled with a corporate-minded postmaster general, Louis DeJoy. Formerly CEO of a private shipping contractor, DeJoy’s chief qualification for running this invaluable public service is that he’s been a major donor to Republican politicians — including Donald Trump, who appointed him to the post.
In 2020, the new honcho put forth a 10-year scheme to “save” the people’s post office by imposing boilerplate corporate tactics — downsize staff, cut service and raise prices. He gave his plan a zippy PR slogan: “Delivering for America.” But delivering less for more is a hard sell, and people soon started rebelling against absurdly late delivery, closure of local branches, long lines at understaffed postal counters, and relentless price hikes, including another 8% increase this year.
Excuse my bad play on words, but there is no joy in seeing an essential public service needlessly gutted. Millions of us rely on timely mail delivered by the amazing network of public postal workers. Their linking any one ZIP code to all others is a pillar of our democracy, not only servicing the well-off and corporate elites, but crucial to small businesses, rural communities, people getting medicines by mail — as well as to millions of us wanting to vote by mail this November.
Four years of DeJoy’s corporate gimmicks to “improve” our postal service by shriveling it have proven disastrous — and the harm is spreading. Enough! This is a time when your voice can matter, for a bipartisan outcry is demanding that Congress and/or the postal board of governors step in pronto to terminate DeJoy’s political meddling. For information and action go to: TakeOnWallSt.com.
Right-wing culture warriors have been relentlessly attacking people’s personal liberties — running hellish crusades to deny our freedom to vote, to read what we want, to form labor unions, to make our own reproductive decisions, etc.
Now, apparently having run out of freedoms to ban, here they come with a twisted attempt to politicize another of our inalienable rights: The pursuit of happiness! They’ve launched a campaign of psycho-babble, preaching that those who embrace progressive ideas and causes are doomed to a life of perpetual unhappiness. “Don’t go there!” they squawk.
This babbaloney is even being advanced by such self-proclaimed “serious” conservatives as New York Times pundit Ross Douthat. He recently opined that “The left-wing temperament is, by nature, unhappier than the moderate and conservative alternatives.” Yes, Douthat insists that we progressives are hampered by a “refusal of contentment,” unlike the joyful serenity enjoyed by right-wingers.
Golly, Ross, how could we have missed the conservative blissfulness inherent in Trump’s perpetual glower and nastiness? And that snarling, right-wing gaggle of quacks, prima donnas and haters in Congress sure offers a fine public example of intrinsic conservative conviviality.
But Douthat plunges deeper into his dark rabbit hole, theorizing that “youth unhappiness” increases “the further left you go.” Not sure how many progressive youngsters he’s actually met, but I’ve been lucky to meet and work regularly with young champions of environmental justice, union organizing, women’s rights, etc. They have continuously lifted my spirits with their optimism, sense of fun and jubilant camaraderie.
And, by the way, young progressives don’t need me — much less an aloof, dour conservative — speaking for them. They have their own voice and are on the way up — laughing at the likes of Douthat.
Jim Hightower is a former Texas Observer editor, former Texas agriculture commissioner, radio commentator and populist sparkplug, a best-selling author and winner of the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship. Write him at info@jimhightower.com or see www.jimhightower.com.
From The Progressive Populist, June 15, 2024
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us