America’s family farmers were astonished last year to get a jolly tweet from the President of the United States: “Have fun!” exclaimed The Donald.

Fun? The farm economy is in the ditch, with crop prices at depression levels and bankruptcies surging. Plus, Trump Inc. has been rigging the law to give agribusiness monopolies more power to run roughshod over farmers and rural communities.

Well, yes, say the billionaire “geniuses” and partisan hacks who’ve seized control of farm and food policies, but our phantasmagoric laissez-fairyland ideology will open up new agricultural markets here at home, so see? Fun!

Those ideologues, however, can’t make chicken salad out of chicken manure, and that’s what their promises are. While Brooke Rollins, Trump’s corporatized ag secretary, babbles about “new” markets—but she actually shut down a nationwide market last year that provided a billion dollars a year to family farmers who produce for local schools, food pantries, etc. In reality, Rollins’ goal is an industrialized, globalized food economy, so she coldly dismissed these local sales as “nonessential.” Of course, that says to all of the people involved that her government considers them nonessential.

Combining arrogance with ignorance, Trump’s aloof plutocrats carelessly wiped out this market right at spring planting time! Each farm family had already taken out thousands of dollars in bank loans to buy seeds and other essential supplies to make this year’s crop, but—WHAMMO!—Trump & Co. slammed the door on the family’s most reliable market, shoving them to the brink of broke… and beyond.

This is what happens when clueless billionaires are brought in to make our public programs “efficient.” Corporate rule is never efficient—and it sure ain’t fun.

Do something!

* Our friends at Farm Action “expose monopoly power through research, investigations, and public education to protect farmers and our food.” Right up our alley! farmaction.us

* The National Farmers Union does a ton of great federal advocacy, and each of their state chapters is even more badass. nfu.org

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Over my years as a political agitator, a special joy has been getting to know and learn from so many other practitioners of the agitating arts who dare to stand up to moneyed elites.

Yes, if you push for a little more fairness and democracy in our “Land of the Free” you will certainly be labeled an agitator. But so what? Wear that proudly, for mavericks and agitators are the ones who’ve advanced America’s democratic possibilities. As Jesse Jackson put it, “the agitator is the center-post in the washing machine that gets the dirt out.”

Indeed, it’s those everyday people who do the hard travelling and heavy lifting to produce grassroots change. For an exemplary model, consider the life of Dolores Huerta. This jewel of a human being died last week after 96 years in the field, inspiring, organizing, and mobilizing supposedly powerless, mostly-impoverished people.

I got to know and occasionally work in her shadow as she crisscrossed the country again and again, organizing farmworkers, immigrants, women, outcasts, and others who’ve been knocked down, held back, and routinely-abused by a morally-corrupt power structure. Astonishingly, despite political disappointments, repeated arrests, brutal beatings by corporate thugs, and devastating personal abuse – she never lost her deep belief that an organized, focused, people’s movement will prevail. Si se puede was her inspiring mantra: “Yes we can do it!”

She was a momentous labor leader and progressive icon, but for me she remains a touchstone for those seeking a life of grassroots agitation. You don’t need to become Dolores Huerta, but see if you can find her spirit inside you.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Inequality in America doesn’t just “happen” – it’s deliberately created by the self-serving actions of corporate powers and political autocrats.

You might have noticed, for example that your health care costs keep rocketing into the stratosphere. This has left millions of our families with no medical coverage at all, and most of the rest of us are struggling to pay ever-higher prices to insurance giants for ever-worsening coverage.

Lately, even those whose employers provide health insurance, are being socked by their companies’ top executives – who, by the way, get platinum-level medical coverage paid by the company. Steadily and stealthily, though, the bosses have been making rank-and-file workers pay for health benefits, which are considered part of the pay they earn. This pick-pocketing was modest at first, but it’s now major thievery, taking an average of $7,500 a year from each employee’s paycheck.

Well, bark corporate apologists, that’s just the natural working of the free market system. Excuse me, but my family’s health is not a market, and there’s nothing “natural” about inequality being foisted on working families by corporate elites.

Speaking of unnatural, take a look at Mark Zuckerberg, the wonky-zonky gabillionaire chief of Meta, Inc. An infamous profiteer at the expense of communities and workers, Mark has become so royally rich that he would owe billions in a proposed California wealth tax. No problem though – elites at the top take care of themselves, so Zuck just had Meta rig its entire stock structure so his new tax obligation would cost him zero!

So billionaire bosses keep pampering themselves by rigging their own corporate rules while robbing their employees’ paychecks. And that, boys and girls, is how the widening inequality gap between the rich and rest of us happens.

Do something!

* Over at Inequality.org, they cover the multitude of issues surrounding pay inequality, and have an action center around CEO pay loaded with information.

* There are also rich people who believe in paying their fair share, and are actually advocating for it! Check out patrioticmillionaires.org.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.