“Summertime, and the living is easy, fish are jumping, and ...” Wait a minute, what the hell is this?
A summer camp for kids — but with a disturbing corporate twist. Some outlets of Chick-fil-A, the fast-food chicken chain, are promoting a summer camp where children as young as 5 can learn “how to be a Chick-fil-A worker.”
Isn’t this fun? The corporation says that while the chickadees won’t actually be doing the work of regular employees, they will learn how to “take orders, deliver orders, make drinks, and be a hostess.”
Of course, the little campers don’t get paid — indeed their families must pay to let the company give them an early dose of the good ol’ American work ethic and a “behind-the-scenes look” inside the hierarchal corporate order. You can’t start ‘em too young on these life lessons! The kiddos do get compensated, sort of, with their very own Chick-fil-A name tag and T-shirt.
OK, this is not the Dickensian dystopia of 19th-century England — but is that our modern standard? There is nothing wrong with young kids working ... but 5-year-olds? And — as was the case in the preteen tasks I had in my father’s small business and on my Aunt Eula’s farm — the objective ought not be indoctrination into the corporate culture of low-wage franchises. Rather, I was learning to help the family and how to contribute to the larger community. My reward was not merely a token stipend but a recognition that I belonged — that I had a role and was valued as part of that community. People didn’t need a corporate name tag to know who I was.
This is Jim Hightower saying ... There’s so much more that an $11 billion nationwide giant like Chick-fil-A could do for the communities that provide its profits. Can’t they think of anything less selfish than promoting a fast-food future for children?
What’s wrong with Neil Gorsuch? His soul, I mean. nnAs one of the domineering right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court, Gorsuch routinely supports enthroning plutocracy, autocracy and his own brand of Christian theocracy over people’s democratic rights. But he also uses his unelected, unchecked judicial position to take power and justice away from America’s least powerful, most vulnerable people — including the homeless.
For example, he ruled last month that an Oregon city’s ban on homeless residents sleeping outdoors was NOT cruel and unusual punishment. Never mind that the city provided nowhere else for homeless individuals and families to bed down, Gorsuch saw no problem with penalizing people who have to sleep or camp out in parks, on the street, etc. After all, he blithely explained, it was not a ban on homelessness but merely on sleeping outdoors.
“It makes no difference,” exclaimed His Supremeness, whether the violator is homeless or “a backpacker on vacation.” Or, I suppose he’d say, a Supreme Court justice sleeping under a bridge. To punctuate his cluelessness, Gorsuch actually asserted that the law applied equally to everyone. Except, of course, that the homeless can’t just go home after being kicked out from under the bridge.
This is Jim Hightower saying ... It’s rank injustice for Gorsuch — a child of a politically powerful and rich family, product of Ivy League schools and high-dollar law firms, possessor of enormous personal wealth and multiple homes — to dictate “let-them-eat-cake” rules for homeless people he’ll never know or understand. Yes, homelessness is a complex social scourge, but cavalierly criminalizing its victims is itself a judicial crime that solves nothing. Neil is not morally fit to judge poor people — so how about replacing him with a homeless person who actually knows something about real life?
What is a SCOTUS? Sounds like a prehistoric critter scuttling along some seabed. But, no, it is the acronym for our Supreme Court of the United States.
SCOTUS is meant to be the impartial arbiter of legal disputes over what our laws mean. Yet, who are these arbiters, how are they elected, why don’t we even know their names, and if they go rogue, imposing their personal autocratic beliefs on our nation’s democratic ideals ... what then?
Well, structurally, SCOTUS is undemocratic, a relic of monarchial rule. Unlike the 535 members of the legislative branch, who are elected from diverse districts across America, there are only nine supremes, and none of the current bunch have ever faced the people, even in an election for dogcatcher. They are handpicked by political and moneyed elites, and most blatantly lie to win approval for their lifetime appointments. Once enthroned, they have no accountability to us commoners, who are expected to blindly obey their edicts.
Today, out of 330 million Americans, six right-wing SCOTUS members have seized control of the court ... and our government. They claim supremacy over the People, the President and the Congress — arbitrarily dictating what is “legal” for elected officials and the public to do. Indeed, they are now making up laws on abortion, presidential power, voting rights, environmental protection and much more to suit their personal political and religious biases. Moreover, they operate behind closed doors, with no disclosure of their conflicts of interest.
This is Jim Hightower saying ... Call this what it is: a right-wing extremist power grab. And it is fast supplanting our people’s historic democratic progress with a kleptocracy of autocratic, plutocratic, theocratic rule. The only remedy is a head-on people’s rebellion to democratize this totally un-American court.
If the six right-wing dogmatists who now literally rule the Supreme Court wonder why 70% of the American people consider them somewhere between politically corrupt and grotesque, they might re-read their Kafkaesque decision last month perverting the meaning of bribery.
Appropriately enough, the case involved garbage trucks. A small-town mayor had funneled a million-dollar contract for new garbage trucks to a local seller, which then made a $13,000 payoff to the mayor. Obvious graft. But no, the six supremes decreed that the payoff was not illegal because it was given to the mayor after the garbage truck contract was issued. Taking money before would be a bribe, they babbled, but money given afterwards is an innocent “gratuity” — like tipping a waiter for good service.
The court’s distortion of kindergarten-level ethics was written by Brett Kavanaugh, infamous for his own frat-boy moral contortions. In his formal opinion, Brett rhetorically asked if such after-the-fact kickbacks should be considered bribes. “The answer,” he proclaimed,” is no.”
Of course, as any reasonable person would tell the black-robed fabricator, the obvious answer is: “Hell yes!”
Kavanaugh even tried to trivialize such official bribery, calling it no more sinister than parents sending a gift basket to thank their child’s teacher for a job well done. Hello, Mr. Clueless, this was a $13,000 gift basket! The truck dealer was obviously rewarding the mayor for handing out a million taxpayer dollars to it!
This is Jim Hightower saying ... Of course, these six supremes are not merely defending small potato malfeasance by local officials. They’re creating a legalistic loophole for the court’s own members to keep taking millions of dollars in “gratuities” from corporate interests seeking judicial favors. It’s a case of corrupt judges voting to legalize their corruption.
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 15, 2024
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