Your Independent Journal from the Heartland
A core role of the U.S. Department of Justice is to protect people from abuse by giant corporations.
But DOJ’s present inhabitants have twisted that mission backwards — using the agency to protect corporate abusers from people seeking justice. For example: Big Oil. This massive polluter is insisting that government authorities must save it from its own transgressions. For decades, multibillion-dollar behemoths like Exxon have known that their fossil fuel emissions are increasing climate change, causing catastrophic destruction and deaths from intensified fires, floods, etc. Numerous lawsuits have now been filed demanding that the profiteers behind these horrific losses pay a fair share of the damage they’ve done.
“Noooo,” whined the petro-perpetrators, scampering to Washington and to Republican statehouses to lobby for retroactive blanket immunity from all responsibility. Sure enough, top GOP officials are racing to bail out this murderous industry, which — by the way — finances the political campaigns of those oily officials.
But wait ... there’s much more:
— Our so-called “Justice Department” has sued Hawaii and Michigan to deny a “state’s right” to sue energy corporations that cause climate change.
— A GOP group of state attorneys general are proposing a nationwide “liability shield” that would preemptively excuse oil, gas and coal polluters from any responsibility for climate damages.
— The same group wants the federal government to cut funding to any state or city that sues energy corporations.
— And King Donald has decreed that the justice department stop all laws, policies and suits that “threaten” fossil fuel production.
This is blatantly corrupt plutocracy ... not to mention stupid! To help stop it, go to the Center for Climate Integrity. ClimateIntegrity.org.
Good News: Small Groups Can Defeat Corporate Giants
From corporate polluters to political bosses, power elites try to create a myth of inevitability, trying to make workaday people feel helpless, too small to change the injustices of the system. Don’t bother is their message.
But the feisty residents of Boxtown, Tenn., definitely did bother when they learned that a couple of profiteering fossil fuel giants were targeting them. Boxtown, a historic Black neighborhood of Memphis settled by former slaves 160 years ago, was considered by Valero Energy and Plains All-American Pipeline to be politically powerless, so when these multibillion-dollar petro powers decided to ram a dirty and dangerous pipeline through the Memphis area, Boxtown was their chosen route. The rich Texas oil barons even sneeringly called the lower-income community, “The point of least resistance.”
Boy, did they get that wrong! Those “small” people of Boxtown resisted fiercely and smartly. Most flat-out refused to sell their family land at the thieving price offered by the oil slicks. They forged a unified grassroots coalition (Memphis Community Against the Pipeline), reached out to other neighborhoods and educated locals about the terrible safety records of the two corporate plunderers. They also enlisted environmental groups to help beat back the strong-arm attempt by Valero and Plains All-American to seize the people’s property through eminent domain. It’s a long story, with many ups and downs, but the inspiring essence of it is that local “nobodies” defeated the big money and raw racist arrogance of a powerhouse duo of absentee corporate elites that disrespected — and misjudged — them.
It gets little national media attention, but regular grassroots communities and coalitions are mounting — and winning — such gutsy fights against corporate exploiters all across America. We’re not helpless or too small. Remember this: Even the smallest dog can lift its leg on the tallest building! To learn more, contact MemphisCAP.org.
AI Billionaires to Grassroots People: Shut Up!
Other than the fact that they are such blood-sucking greedheads, why have today’s multibillionaires, high-tech barons of artificial intelligence (AI), become so despised by so many grassroots Americans?
By “so many,” I mean they’ve sparked a hell-raising mass revolt, originating in farm country, spreading through working-class suburbs, into community colleges and other centers of Middle America — now including environmental, religious and democracy movements.
This is a genuine populist rebellion of workaday families against the corporate oligarchy of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos and other “geniuses” of artificial intelligence. The billionaires are racing to install millions of supersmart AI robots in nearly every workplace, from manufacturing to health care, farming to finance.
Amazingly, the tech elites consider themselves to be “humanitarians,” for they say turning work over to AI would free humans to ... well, do what? Geniuses can’t be bothered with such mundane details, so they’re not interested in the soon-to-be displaced masses of people who’ll be “made redundant.”
So — hello — people are revolting (in the very best sense of that term). Interestingly, some of the strongest backlash is coming from a huge group generally assumed to be politically apathetic or enthusiastic about all technology: Young people. Columnist Michelle Goldberg reports that several tech honchos who gave college commencement speeches last month were startled when they launched into gushing praise for the glorious future promised by AI. They were practically driven off-stage by roaring cascades of boos from the students!
The pain that AI profiteers are imposing is one thing, but an even greater cause of this spreading revolt is the imperious arrogance and stupidity of royal elites who think ordinary people don’t matter. Did these oligarchs never hear about the Revolution of 1776?
Would You Buy a Lump of Coal from Trump?
Has your family consumed its lump of coal today?
One of the most perverse presidential moves ever is Donald Trump’s Big Government decree to force-feed “King Coal” to Americans. Proclaiming an “energy emergency,” he unilaterally ordered five electric utilities to reopen their old, coal-burning power plants.
These are toxic bombs that continuously spew mercury, carbon dioxide and a mix of other killer pollutants into our air, water and bodies. Mercury emissions are especially vicious, causing early death in adults and permanent IQ damage to fetuses and children. Even the president’s own health secretary has excoriated mercury pollution from coal-fired utilities as “the most powerful neurotoxin we know of in the universe.”
That’s why We the People have rebelled against the greed of coal barons in past years, finally replacing their deadly fuel with wind power, solar and other renewable energy sources — which also lowers consumers’ electric bills.
So why push to re-impose a horrific corporate poison that the people have already rejected — and that progressive utilities have moved beyond?
Crass corruption. By hailing dirty coal as “beautiful,” while demonizing and defunding clean energy, Trump has been showered with millions of dollars from old-line coal profiteers. And never underestimate vanity — he even got a custom bronze trophy from the polluters, hailing him as the “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal.”
After America began replacing coal with clean energy, mercury pollution plummeted. But by restarting coal-fired utilities last year, Trump has already increased mercury emissions by 9%. Since he tries to merchandize everything, though, you might be able to buy an autographed lump of coal from him.
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.
