From the Left

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Politics

Tom Paine: What a Guy!

From the Left / Jim Hightower /

In my view, the greatest of America's "Founding Fathers" was not George Washington or Thomas Jefferson -- nor, technically, he wasn't even an American. Rather, he was a British immigrant and itinerate agitator for real democracy, enlightenment and universal human rights.

He was Thomas Paine, a prolific, profound, persuasive and widely popular...Read more

Is 'Icarus' the Solution to Climate Change?

From the Left / Jim Hightower /

Although the sun is an essential life force, we need to protect ourselves from its relentless glare.

Sunglasses? Check. Beach umbrella? Check. Tinted car windows? Check. A huge, multitrillion-dollar parasol floating in outer space to reduce global warming? Uh ... huh?

Ready or not, here come the corporate hucksters and techno-fantasists with...Read more

How Corporate Lobbyists Can Engineer a Train Wreck

From the Left / Jim Hightower /

"Corporate crises consultants" (yes, there are such creatures) have patented a formula allowing their wrongdoing clients to champion reform while simultaneously killing it.

A classic case is now unfolding around last year's derailment of a 2-mile-long Norfolk Southern freight train in East Palestine, Ohio. The community's air, soil, water and...Read more

Abortion-Ban Extremists Are Using a Slave Law to Repress Women

From the Left / Jim Hightower /

Here's our big word of the day: Extraterritoriality.

It expresses a sketchy legal theory asserting that rulers in one state have a right to enforce their laws in another state. The most prominent use of it was in the infamous Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, requiring officials in Northern anti-slave states to capture and return escaped slaves to ...Read more

What Is a Banker's Promise Worth?

From the Left / Jim Hightower /

Bruce King, former governor of New Mexico, often baffled people with his convoluted use of words. Like the time he vetoed a loan shark bill he'd previously agreed to sign. "But, Governor," squealed the lenders' lobbyists, "we had your commitment!" Unfazed, King said, "Now, boys, we all know that a commitment is not a promise."

In this case, ...Read more

The Right Wing's Program to Solve Childhood Obesity

From the Left / Jim Hightower /

This plotline could have come from one of Charles Dickens' novels about upper-class depravity: "Miserly governors refuse to provide gruel for poverty-stricken ragamuffins."

Unfortunately, this is not a novel, but modern-day reality taking place in 15 states, where right-wing officeholders have scorned a federal program to provide food this ...Read more

Just What We Need -- Another Border Wall!

From the Left / Jim Hightower /

In the 1980s, many Texans were alarmed that hordes of immigrants were fleeing Rust Belt states and pouring across the Red River to take our jobs. So, my friend Steve Fromholz recommended a big beautiful wall across our northern border to keep them out.

But Fromholz -- a popular singer-songwriter and renown political sprite -- was ahead of his...Read more

When Private Enterprise Fails, Public Enterprise Must Step Up

From the Left / Jim Hightower /

In cities all across America, an infiltration of wealthy investors, developers and bankers is driving poor and middle-class families out of their own towns.

What's at work here is the relentless financial shove of high-dollar gentrification. House by house, block by block, moneyed interests suddenly (and often secretly) buy up properties, ...Read more

Let's Send All Billionaires to Mars!

From the Left / Jim Hightower /

Unfortunately, in the short time we homo sapiens have existed on this 4.5-billion-year-old Planet Earth, we have trashed the place. Climate change, deforestation, desertification, plastics in everything, etc.

Fortunately, though, we large-brained hominids have evolved an almost-magical resource that promises to be our salvation: Billionaires!...Read more

A New Road to Farm, Food and Climate Progress

From the Left / Jim Hightower /

"Arkansas Traveler" is an old-time song of folk humor that tells of a well-heeled dandy who gets lost while traveling across the Ozark Mountains. He comes upon a backwoods farmer and shouts out: "Hey farmer, where does this road go?" Not missing a beat, the farmer says: "I've lived here all my life, stranger, and it ain't gone nowhere, yet."

...Read more

Want Environmental Progress? Follow The Kids.

From the Left / Jim Hightower /

"OK, boomer." That's a snarky phrase currently some use to mock 60- and-70-year-olds they consider to be cluelessly out oftouch.

Recently, however, teenagers and 20-somethings have turned that snide sentiment into a positive challenge directed at doomsayers of all ages who claim nothing can be done to stop runaway global warming: "OK, doomer,...Read more

 

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Dave Granlund Bill Day Andy Marlette Gary Varvel Gary McCoy Dana Summers