ArcaMax

No longer just a parlor game, monopoly is what's for dinner. Practically every commodity and every step in producing our families' most essential consumer purchases is in the tight grip of four or fewer global conglomerates:

-- Four chemical conglomerates -- Bayer (German), BASF (German), ChemChina (Chinese) and Corteva (U.S.) -- control more ...Read more

It's time for America to go back to the future -- a future of true greatness created by a people united to build a strong nation for the Common Good.

From the start of our United States, rather than shrinking at the right-wing bugaboo of "Big Government," Americans have backed leaders who dared to do big public projects: Abraham Lincoln's fight...Read more

Usually, the Powers That Be swat away the kind of big-ticket reforms our country needs by haughtily asserting a few hoary economic fables they dress up as immutable "truths."

"We don't have the money."

They cluck that it would be nice if everyone could be given the right to top-quality health care, education, child care and (fill in the blank)...Read more

Hey, you, get away from those polling places! No trespassing! We don't want your kind here! Scram!

How's that for a winning political message? It is stupid, shameful and ultimately self-defeating, yet being blatantly anti-democratic and anti-voter is the official electoral strategy being enthusiastically embraced nationwide by Republican ...Read more

Some people find hunting for sport to be abhorrent, so hunters have come up with euphemisms to make what they do sound gentler on the ears of the nonhunting public. For example, animals aren't killed; they're "harvested." And dead prey is not gutted but "processed."

Corporate America has taken note of this verbal ploy and is now adopting it, ...Read more

There was a white oak tree in Athens, Georgia, that was so treasured by the locals it was not owned by anyone, not even the city. It was an autonomous entity known as the The Tree that Owns Itself.

Around the 1820s, William Jackson, owner of the property where the oak resided, wrote a formal deed in which he proclaimed, "(I)n ...Read more

As a general rule, I don't agree with Republican lawmakers, since they're generally wrong. But after looking into one of their main issues, I have to agree with them: Our elections are being rigged.

Anyone who takes an honest look can see that the electoral process all across the country is being stolen in broad daylight -- by ...Read more

It's written that Nero, the debauched ancient emperor, fiddled while Rome burned. Whether or not that's true, it certainly is true that Ted Cruz, the self-indulgent Texas senator, fiddled around while his state froze.

While Ted fled Texas for the sunny clime and luxury of the Ritz-Carlton resort in Cancun, Mexico, dozens of his constituents ...Read more

To say that President Joe Biden lost the rural vote is to sugarcoat the dire situation Democrats face out beyond the suburbs. Why? Well, scoff too many lazy politicos and pundits, rural America is indelibly red, filled with white rubes and racists, so Dems should write them off and concentrate resources where the big numbers are.

Aha! Might it ...Read more

We've put Joe Biden in the White House ... but what do we get back for that? We get a real possibility of winning some progressive policies. Not that he will turn into a fireball of democratic populism, but unlike in 1992 and 2008, when then-President Bill Clinton and then-President Barack Obama fleetingly raised hopes that progress was possible...Read more

Bob Wills, the renowned leader of a classic Western swing band, would joyously call out mid-song, "Take it away, Leon!" bringing on a crowd-pleasing instrumental solo by steel guitar maestro Leon McAuliffe.

But now comes another Leon who's such an off-key, screechy Wall Street billionaire that crowds are shouting, "Go away, Leon!" He is hedge ...Read more

The Democratic Party establishment of don't-rock-the-corporate-boat congressional leaders and their hired political operatives keep trying to purge progressive activists and policies from the party. Even when the candidates of these old-line forces win, as Joe Biden did, they can't seem to stop assailing grassroots progressives who supply the ...Read more

What do your toothbrush, a fish dinner and your running shoes have in common?

Plastic. For roughly 4,499,999,900 years since our planet was formed, plastic was not a presence on Earth, much less a problem. But in the last few decades, this manmade petroleum polymer has become a dominant element in nature. We now live on Planet Plastic, and it's...Read more