Corporate Stupidity Sidetracked By Mad-as-Hell Farm Rebels

Jim Hightower on Jul 22, 2026

Executives climbing the corporate ladder to the top seem to lose IQ the higher up they get.

That might explain why John Deere's top corporate bosses have imposed an astonishingly stupid policy on America's farmers. For years, they've decreed that while a farmer "technically owns" a tractor or other John Deere product, the owner is prohibited from making any repairs when the machinery breaks down, stalls out, etc. Instead, owners must call an authorized Deere dealer to fix what most farmers could handle by themselves.

The monopolistic profiteer refuses to make its repair manuals available to customers or local repair shops, so ... gotcha!

But in 2020, Walther Schweitzer rallied with other mad-as-hell farmers and ranchers to rebel. The Montana rancher's tractor had gone kaput in hay baling season -- but, "no," said a Deere dealer, a technician is not available; and "no," you can't have access to the diagnostic computer to do it yourself. So, he had to wait weeks before Deere finally got his tractor running -- a fairly basic job worth about $600 ... but they billed Walter nearly $4,000.

That's what's called "a monopoly fix." But they messed with the wrong farmer. Schweitzer, president of the Montana Farmers Union, mobilized grassroots pressure from five states, forcing federal officials to sue Deere. This month, Deere's aloof executives settled that suit, finally letting its farm customers take charge of the equipment that -- hello! -- they own!

Schweitzer points out that this landmark win over the arrogance of Deere executives is just one stepping stone to a right-to-repair law for all products. To help push this right forward, go to repair.org.

IGNORANCE + ARROGANCE + POWER = LUNACY

Some presidents are known as uplifting orators; our present president is known for petulant putdowns.

Periodically, Trump discovers a new pejorative that he considers clever, so he wears it out attacking his endless list of enemies. His current favorite is "lunatic," hurling the slur at women reporters, most foreign leaders, all Democrats, protestors and ... well, everyone who offends him.

But if he wants some real lunatics to belittle, why not that menagerie he's appointed to top government positions? Such as Brendan Carr, Trump's FCC attack dog who keeps yapping that he's going to abolish NPR.

Failing at that, Carr has now gone from silly to ridiculous, pushing a phantasmagoric scheme that truly is lunacy. It comes from some Elon Musk proteges who apparently noticed that our planet gets dark as night falls. Eureka, they exclaimed, we need to "light the night!"

Why? Well, they say, to illuminate all city streets and rural roads, make crops grow faster and stuff like that. But how to generate the light? Easy, the geniuses explain: mirrors.

They want government support to deploy a global network of orbiting space mirrors that could reflect sunlight onto Earth's rotating dark areas. Lots of mirrors -- the schemers propose to put 50,000 in our skies by 2030, with each of the largest ones shining as bright as 100 full moons!

Nothing could go wrong with that, right? Bedazzled, Carr didn't ask. Instead, with no public input, he just rubber-stamped an initial launch of this "novel technology," blandly assuring us that "harms are unlikely to occur."

To oppose this lunacy, connect with the American Astronomical Society: aas.org.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

----