For us Texans, there’s nothing new about Bible-thumping politicians bedeviling us with the foolishness of their dogmatic Christian piety. A century ago, for example, a proposal was made to offer bilingual education to Spanish-speaking school kids. But it was quashed by the governor, who solemnly declared: “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for the children of Texas.”
But suddenly, Louisiana’s demagogic Christian officials have surged past Texas on the far right. The Pelican State’s governor, an Elmer Gantry wannabe, has decreed that every single public school classroom must henceforth prominently display the Ten Commandments to indoctrinate the tykes in his religion. That way, babbled a legislative backer of the state edict, students can “look up and see what God says is right and what he says is wrong.”
Actually, the Christian Bible itself is a little wobbly on that, offering three different versions of holy commandments, including this: “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.”
Wobbliest of all, though, is the moral authority of depraved politicians hypocritically preaching to school kids about such sins of adultery, stealing, and (hello, MAGA zealots!) worshiping false gods. Plus, their piousness doesn’t work. Young people are not so dull and docile that they’ll mindlessly obey what some self-serving, immoral politicos put on a poster.
Louisiana could have consulted Texas on this. For some 60 years, a 6-foot-tall granite slab engraved with the Ten Commandments has stood outside our State Capitol building. Yet, those inside the Capitol — including our governor — routinely violate those engraved moral sentiments.
If so-called leaders don’t give a damn about honoring the values they put on classroom posters, why should students?
Being a lifelong Texan, I’m used to hot summers. But what the hell — 99 degrees in June! Last year, we had 80 days of 100-plus temperatures, and we’re looking at 90 days this year. I can’t moan in self-pity, though, for the globally warming furnace is now searing the whole country, even in northern climes where people are used to having days in August when they need “summer sweaters.”
As we crank up our air conditioners, however, let’s pause for a moment to consider some 50 million workers in your and my communities who are exposed throughout the day to the full intensity of the sun’s power. They are roofers and landscapers, warehouse workers and farm laborers, street pavers and letter carriers. These have always been hot jobs, but now they’re deadly — heat kills more Americans today than hurricanes, floods and tornadoes combined.
So surely there are basic workplace rules assuring that these exposed people get water, shade breaks, etc ... No. And when such humanitarian codes are proposed, industry bosses coldly reject them. For example, after several Texas cities began enacting worker protections, corporate lobbyists rushed to their hireling, Gov. Greg Abbott, who obediently snuck a state preemption into law, banning local officials from setting their own heat standards. That year, a record 450 people died of heat exposure in Texas, but Abbott just snarled that his preemption “increases economic liberty.”
Mercifully, President Joe Biden is pushing national heat rules. Of course, industry lobbyists are out to kill his anti-killing reforms, calling them “unreasonably complicated.” Really? Providing water and shade is too perplexing for our corporate geniuses? Why don’t we put them on roofing jobs in August — and let them think about it?
Here’s a member of Congress with too much time on his hands ... and way too little of anything on his mind.
Rep. Greg Steube of Florida is a run-of-the-mill, extremist Republican specializing in such partisan slapstick as trying to nullify Joe Biden’s election and install GOP loser, Donald Trump, as president.
But Steube went full-tilt ridiculous when he excitedly announced that, “Tomorrow I will introduce legislation to rename our coastal waters after ... Donald Trump!” This would brand all the seas around America’s entire coastline with “TRUMP” logos — like trapping all of America in a big fat Trump bear hug.
But isn’t it rather blah to “honor” an ex-president with obscure boundary waters? It’s like a town council voting to put the ex-mayor’s name on a drainage ditch. Still, Stuebe hoped that this would charm the MAGA demigod, prompting him to smile on Greg’s future election ambitions. Believe it or not, this is what is considered serious congressional business by the GOP!
Republican Congress critters are in a frenzy to kiss up to their convict-in-chief, proposing multiple government gifts for him. Arizona’s Paul Gosar, for example, is demanding that the U.S. Treasury print $500 bills bearing a portrait of the Donald. And Florida’s Anna Paulina Luna proposes to tarnish the Congressional Gold Medal by bestowing it on the political mad dog who launched the Jan. 6 mob attack on — yes, Congress! How cynical — especially since Steube and other Donald worshippers had opposed giving the congressional medal to police officers who had risked their lives to protect them from Trump’s rampaging mob.
Meanwhile, how about a more fitting honor for the huckster: Name a federal prison “Trump Tower.” Put it in big gold letters!
Wow. Big political news, folks! nnIn an astonishing twist, some far-right-wing Republican groups and politicians are demanding that their longtime corporate allies — such as Walmart, the Koch brothers, GE, and Wall Street banks — stick to their business and stop interfering in the people’s political decisions. One group, the National Center for Public Policy Research, bluntly declares that it now prefers “corporate behavior without partisan influences.” It’s even urging corporate shareholders to pass resolutions requiring top executives to halt their overbearing political intrusion. What an unbelievable breakthrough for progressive reform!
Well, it would be ... if true. But it’s a fraud. NCPPR only wants corporate powers to stop politicking against right-wing issues. Specifically, the tricksters demand that corporations cease all efforts to advance diversity, equality and inclusiveness in American society. Also, they oppose any corporate embrace of pride events, or corporate acknowledgement of America’s history of institutional racism. And, they say, corporations should stop all efforts to combat climate change, since right-wing orthodoxy says global warming is a hoax. Forget head-in-the-sand politics, NCPPers want to bury political reality itself in the sand.
Now for the good news: They’re buffoons. Even profiteering investors aren’t buying their hokum. Their “anti-WOKE” resolutions are being rejected by 98% of shareholders’ votes! Even in the rigged system of corporate voting, that’s a stunning rejection. Meanwhile, shareholder proposals to support progressive ideals and policies have been gaining ground, now winning a fourth to a third of the vote. That’s three times better than the support that such proposals got 20 years ago.
This is further proof that the fundamental political barrier to right-wing extremism is that the vast majority of Americans actually believe in economic fairness, social justice ... and reality.
Excellent news, people: Republican officials are mounting an all-out political push for a massive cut in our taxes next year!
Well ... by “our taxes,” they don’t mean yours. Rather, here they come with another absurd sob story about giant corporations and the super-wealthy suffering unbearably from excessive taxation. Claiming to feel the pain of these multibillionaires, the Republicans are riding to their rescue, promising to extend the trillion-dollar tax boondoggle Donald Trump handed to the rich in 2017, and vowing to add an extra trillion dollars’ worth of new breaks for them.
Ludicrously, the lawmakers, lobbyists and corporate front groups pushing this garish plutocratic giveaway loudly insist that the real beneficiaries are not the privileged few but (cue the patriotic music) America! Lowering taxes on the corporate rich, they exclaim, will let those elites invest more in new jobs and enterprises, expanding the economy for all.
Of course, that’s the same ball of dung they keep rolling up Capitol Hill again and again, and it gets stinkier every time, especially now that monopolies control everything from high tech and health care to oil and food prices. Why reward them? Far from creating jobs, they’re frantically automating them, and rather than increasing competitiveness, monopolies buy up or squeeze out competitors. Plus, if they get another tax windfall, the oligarchs will just use it to jack up their stock prices, artificially making them richer and more dominant over us.
Another “gotcha” in the GOP’s giveaway would gut the IRS’ ability to investigate and prosecute these filthy-rich scofflaws who annually cheat us out of billions of dollars they owe for the upkeep of America. For information and action on this massive ripoff, go to AmericansForTaxFairness.org.
What if Labor Day was not about giving working families one measly Monday off to sleep in, rush to the beach, do some 12-ounce elbow bends and then report back first thing Tuesday to start another 364 days of pulling the corporate plow?
Instead, imagine if working stiffs themselves took hold of this day, putting it to work rallying and reinvigorating a rebellious labor movement to achieve economic fairness and social justice for all in America. This was, after all, the purpose of the original Labor Day, held in 1882. Thousands of bricklayers, machinists, piano makers, longshoremen and other unionized workers in the New York City area defied corporate bosses to declare their own day off. They were not taking a vacation but making “a public show of organized strength,” energizing labor’s demand for an end to the tyranny of 12-hour days, six-day weeks and $2 a day in pay.
In an audacious affront to the plutocracy, a miles-long parade of common workers marched six abreast, accompanied by union floats and boisterous bands. They pointedly traversed right in front of the gilded mansions of robber barons living along Fifth Avenue, the most ostentatious corridor of wealth and power in America. The day culminated in a sprawling picnic and festival, with 25,000 union celebrants enjoying food, beer, dancing, one another... and a shared sense that the working class was on the move.
Why not again? Autoworkers, flight attendants, fast-food workers and others are clearly on the move, so why not make a new “public show of organized strength,” directly confronting the corporate greedheads and political boneheads who’re stealing our democracy. Ralph Nader called for this two years ago — to see his ideas for a “Workers’ Action Day,” go to Nader.org.
Sam Alito is so ugly that he can’t even see his ugliness. nnI don’t mean looks, but the deep inner ugliness of character that keeps oozing from this so-called “supreme” judge. Start with the unabashed lies he told senators to win his lifetime appointment to America’s powerfully undemocratic judicial branch. Lie No. 1 was his promise not to mess with women’s constitutional right to reproductive freedom. But once he put on his authoritarian black robe, he wrote the court’s edict ripping that right from every woman.
Later, Alito got caught secretly accepting a freebie trip to a luxury fishing lodge, paid for by a billionaire vulture capitalist. Far from embarrassed, he haughtily asserted that as a Supreme he has no ethical duty even to report such gifts of “personal hospitality.” Indeed, he’s led the Supreme Court’s corrupt refusal to adopt an enforceable code of ethics (which every other public office must do).
Which brings us to Alito’s current flag flap, revealing a clownish show of tone-deaf arrogance. Abandoning any pretense of judicial impartiality, he’s had flags flying at both his home and beach house, ostentatiously trumpeting his embrace of MAGA extremism and his opposition to President Joe Biden. How, then, can he be a fair judge of upcoming cases concerning Trump’s anti-democratic power grabs?
No problem, said Alito, imperiously waving off proper demands that he remove himself from ruling on these cases. Trying to deflect a tsunami of criticism, the black-robed scoundrel resorted to the classic “gentleman’s dodge”: He blamed his wife. “My wife is fond of flying flags,” he said, insisting that he never even noticed them flapping in front of his houses for the world to see.
That’s not just ugly. It’s supremely stupid.
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, August 1, 2024
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