Corporate America has proudly elevated good moral values to a special place. That place is the trash can.

Indeed, free market gurus assert that the only ethical obligation a corporation has to society is to deliver as much profit as possible to its big investors – everybody else be damned. And they excuse any awfulness they cause by claiming that they “broke no laws.” But – hello – they write the laws, so corporate immorality is always technically legal.

America experienced this corporate dodge just before Christmas, when a line of super-cell tornados ripped through the Midwest states, demolishing buildings and whole towns, killing more than 90 people. It was called “a tragedy” – but those deaths were not destiny. While a twisting 190-mph vortex can be cataclysmic, we’re not helpless in the face of its fury, for an effective, cheap defense is readily available: Safe rooms.

Built inside homes, schools, factories, shopping centers, and elsewhere, people can shelter safely in these simple concrete rooms during big blows, surviving even if the building around them is shredded. They’ve been proven to provide “near absolute protection” from tornados, and safety officials, insurers, consumer advocates, and others have long proposed amending our building codes to require them in new commercial and public buildings. Such a provision would’ve saved many workers who were crushed inside an Amazon warehouse, a candle-making factory, and other buildings destroyed by December’s storms.

But they died, because in 2012, members of a little-known industry-controlled group, the International Code Council, quietly vetoed the proposal, calling it “overly restrictive,” even declaring it “way too soon to do a knee jerk reaction” to tornado deaths.

All those buildings smashed by December’s tornados were corporate death sites because their shoddy construction “broke no laws.” Let’s ask Corporate America if it’s still too soon for Congress to mandate tornado-safe rooms.

In 1972, I was part of a nationwide campaign that came close to getting the US Senate to reject Earl Butz, Richard Nixon’s choice for secretary of agriculture.

A coalition of grassroots farmers, consumers, and public interest organizations teamed up with progressive senators to undertake the almost impossible challenge of defeating the cabinet nominee.

The 51 to 44 Senate vote was so close, because we were able to expose Butz as… well, as butt-ugly. We brought the abusive power of corporate agribusiness into the public consciousness for the first time. We had won a moral victory, but it turned out to be a curse and a blessing.

First, the curse. Butz had risen to prominence in the world of agriculture by devoting himself to the corporate takeover of the global food economy. He openly promoted the preeminence of middleman food manufacturers over family farmers.

“Agriculture is no longer a way of life,” he barked, “it’s a business.” He instructed farmers to “Get big or get out” – and proceeded to shove tens of thousands of them out by promoting an export-based, corporate-run food economy. “Adapt,” he warned, “or die.” The ruination of farms and rural communities, Butz added, “releases people to do something useful in our society.”

The curse of Butz, however, spun off a blessing. Small farmers and food artisans practically threw up at the resulting Twinkieization of America’s food. They were sickened that nature’s own contribution to human culture was being turned into another plasticized product of corporate profiteers. They threw themselves into creating and sustaining a viable alternative. Linking locally with consumers, environmentalists, community activists, marketers, and others, the Good Food rebellion has since sprouted, spread, and blossomed from coast to coast.

To find farmers markets and other expressions of this movement right where you live, go to www.LocalHarvest.org.

This holiday season got me to thinking about America's spirit of giving, and I don't mean this overdone business of Christmas, Hanukkah and other holiday gifts. I mean our true spirit of giving – giving of ourselves.

Yes, we are a country of rugged individualists, yet there's also a deep, community-minded streak in each of us. We're a people who believe in the notion that we're all in this together, that we can make our individual lives better by contributing to the common good.

The establishment media pay little attention to grassroots generosity, focusing instead on the occasional showy donation by what it calls "philanthropists" -- big tycoons who give a little piece of their billions to some university or museum in exchange for getting a building named after them. But in my mind, the real philanthropists are the millions of you ordinary folks who have precious little money to give, but consistently give of themselves, and do it without demanding that their name be engraved on a granite wall.

My own Daddy, rest his soul, was a fine example of this. With half a dozen other guys in Denison, Texas, he started the Little League baseball program volunteering to build the park, sponsor and coach the teams, run the squawking P.A. system, etc. etc. Even after I graduated from Little League, Daddy stayed working at it, because his involvement was not merely for his kids . . . but for all. He felt the same way about being taxed to build a public library in town. I don't recall him ever going in that building, much less checking-out a book, but he wanted it to be there for the community and he was happy to pay his part. Not that he was a do-good liberal, for God's sake -- indeed, he called himself a conservative.

My Daddy didn't even know he had a political philosophy, but he did, and it's the best I've ever heard. He would often say to me, "Everybody does better when everybody does better." If only our leaders in Washington and on Wall Street would begin practicing this true American Philosophy.

In a world that’s clogged and choking with a massive overdose of plastic trash, you’ll be heartened to learn that governments and industries are teaming up to respond forcefully to this planetary crisis.

Unfortunately, their response has been to engage in a global race to make more plastic stuff and to force poor countries to become dumping grounds for plastic garbage. Leading this Kafkaesque greedfest are such infamous plunderers and polluters as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, and other petrochemical profiteers. With fossil fuel profits crashing, the giants are rushing to convert more of their over-supply of oil into plastic. But where to send the monstrous volumes of waste that will result?

The industry’s chief lobbyist outfit, the American Chemistry Council, looked around last year and suddenly shouted: “Eureka, there’s Africa!” In particular, they’re targeting Kenya to become “a plastics hub” for global trade in waste. However, Kenyans have an influential community of environmental activists who’ve enacted some of the world’s toughest bans on plastic pollution. To bypass this inconvenient local opposition, the dumpers are resorting to an old corporate power play: “Free Trade.” Their lobbyists are pushing an autocratic trade agreement that would ban Kenyan officials from passing their own laws or rules that interfere with trade in plastic waste.

Trying to hide their ugliness, the plastic profiteers created a PR front group called “Alliance to End Public Waste.” But – hello – it’s not “public” waste. Exxon and other funders of the alliance make, promote, and profit from the mountains of destructive trash they now demand we clean up.

The real problem is not waste, but plastic itself. From production to disposal, it’s destructive to people and the planet. Rather than subsidizing petrochemical behemoths to make more of the stuff, policymakers should seek out and encourage people who are developing real solutions and alternatives.

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

Plastic. We now live on Planet Plastic, billions of tons of waste from everyday products made of these chemical contaminants are strewn literally everywhere – on the highest mountaintops, into the deepest seabeds, in dense tropical jungles and all across barren deserts. It’s estimated, for example, that in less than 30 years, the gross volume of discarded plastic in our oceans will outnumber fish! From grocery carry-out bags to shower curtains to almost invisible bits of microplastics, the vast tonnage of this trash increases every minute, with an afterlife lasting centuries, wreaking havoc on ecosystems, destroying species, and infusing our water, air, soil, food… and us. Consider just two common products – your toothbrush and your sneakers.

Until the 1930s, toothbrushes were made of degradable, natural components. Since then, though, practically all have been throwaway plastic brushes. But there is no “away,” so nearly all of the trillions of brushes we’ve discarded in the past century are still out there somewhere on the land or in our water.

Moving from your teeth to your feet, consider that millions of sneakers are sold in the US each year, advertised as being athletic and “cool.” What’s uncool is that they’re made almost entirely of melded and molded plastics that are practically impossible to recycle. So, after a short time in our closets, sneakers spend an eternity as globs of toxic plastic trash.

We’re being choked by our own synthetic waste – from billions of plastic bottles and cigarette filters to tons of straws and synthetic rubber tires. As the wise old saying puts it, if you find that you’ve dug yourself into a hole, the first thing to do is to quit digging. To help stop the insanity, contact the group, Beyond Plastics.

Advertising has been characterized as rattling a stick in a bucket – a noisy cry for public attention.

One example of this crass hucksterism is the rush by top executives of multibillion-dollar corporations to splatter their corporate names on sports venues. Responding to a blatant scam by team owners, executives are spending absurd sums of their shareholders’ money to “win” temporary naming rights to local stadiums, arenas, etc. The come-on is that this billboarding will buy brand recognition, customer loyalty, and even public gratitude for the purchaser.

Seriously? Do you fly Delta, bank at Wachovia, or drive a Toyota because their names are on a big sports structure somewhere? And what do outfits like Ameriquest, Qualcomm, and FTX even sell – and where are they located? As for public gratitude, ask Houstonians how thankful they are that global energy giant Enron slapped its name on the Astro’s baseball park in 1999, just three years before the corporation was forced into bankruptcy for being guilty of massive fraud and squalid executive greed.

But the bucket-rattling name game keeps drawing new players. The latest entrants are purveyors of cryptocurrencies, the phantasmagoric, here-today-gone-tomorrow form of digital money. One of these, Crypto.com, has just laid out a ridiculous $700 million (presumably in real money, not “cryptos”) to put its occult brand name on the home arena of the Los Angeles Lakers. Why? The parties to the deal put it in grandiose terms – “a match made in heaven” exulted the arena’s giddy owner, even proclaiming that Crypto.com will “help us chart a course for the future of sports.”

Huh? I doubt that this cryptic, Singapore-based money dealer can even dribble a basketball, much less direct the sport’s future! Like Enron and the rest, all it’s doing is rattling the money bucket, turning sports into just another corporate money hustle.

‘Tis the season, right? Traditionally, this time of year celebrates spirituality and festivities – including Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa.

In modern day America, however, the Winter Solstice signals the faithful to gather from afar in monumental temples to worship our nation’s supreme secular deity: Big Time Sports! Get ready for a non-stop frenzy of football, basketball, soccer, and more – with devout fans making tribal pilgrimages to their sacred stadiums and arenas.

But whatever the sport, the name of the game these days is the same: M-O-N-E-Y, for the people’s sport franchises are firmly in the grip of a self-regulating handful of secretive, überrich, autocratic, corporate owners. We might worship the team that actually plays the sport, but our money mostly goes to this ruling clique of billionaire barons.

Consider those gargantuan houses of worship where the games are played. We The People (including non-worshipers) paid for nearly all of them with tax dollars, usually with no chance to vote on the giveaway. Yet, a few dozen profiteering team owners are given control of the venues. They set and collect the outrageous ticket prices and are even allowed to gouge the faithful by charging $15 for one small beer!

Most insulting, these rich public welfare moochers pocket millions of extra dollars a year by turning these huge edifices (even those built with the people’s money) into private billboards by selling off the so-called “naming rights” to the highest corporate bidders. Thus, dozens of our major sports facilities don’t honor the cities they’re in, the citizenry, or even the team. Instead they’re gaudily plastered with brand names like FedEx Field, Minute Maid Park, RCA Dome, and Toyota Center – as though they’re corporate owned.

The money game is yet another corporate swindle, made even more corrupt by its expropriation of America’s sporting spirit for private greed.

As a writer, I get stuck every so often straining for the right words to tell my story. Over the years, though, I’ve learned when to quit tying myself into mental knots over sentence construction, instead stepping back and rethinking where my story is going.

This process is essentially what millions of American working families are going through this year as record numbers of them are shocking bosses, politicians, and economists by stepping back and declaring: “We quit!” Most of the quits are tied to very real abuses that have become ingrained in our workplaces over the past couple of decades – poverty paychecks, no health care, unpredictable schedules, no child care, understaffing, forced overtime, unsafe jobs, sexist and racist managers, tolerance of aggressively-rude customers, and so awful much more.

Specific grievances abound, but at the core of each is a deep, inherently-destructive executive-suite malignancy: Disrespect. The corporate system has cheapened employees from valuable human assets worthy of being nurtured and advanced to a bookkeeping expense that must be steadily eliminated. It’s not just about paychecks, it’s about feeling valued, feeling that the hierarchy gives a damn about the people doing the work.

Yet, corporate America is going out of its way to show that it doesn’t care – and, of course, workers notice. So, unionization is booming, millions who were laid off by the pandemic are refusing to rush back to the same old grind, and now millions who have jobs are quitting. This is much more than an unusual unemployment stat – it’s a sea change in people’s attitude about work itself... and life.

People are rethinking where their story is going and how they can take it in a better direction. Yes, nearly everyone will eventually return to work, but workers themselves have begun redefining the job and rebalancing it with life.

Corporate bosses across America have been sputtering in outrage at you working stiffs this summer, spewing expletives about the fact that while the US economy has been coming back... you haven’t!

“Labor shortage,” they squeal, lazily accusing the workforce of mass laziness. They charge insultingly that millions of workers got used to laying around during the pandemic. Noting that there is now an abundance of jobs open for everything from restaurant workers to nurses, the bosses and their political dogs bark that you people need to get back in the old harness and start pulling again.

Adding a nasty bite to their bark, several GOP governors cut off unemployment benefits to people, hoping to force them to work. Other businesses have proffered signing bonuses, free dinner coupons, and other lures, while such notoriously mingy outfits as McDonald’s and Walmart have even upped their wage scale in an effort to draw workers.

Yet... no go. In fact, to the astonishment of the economic elite, the employment flow this year is going the other way! Record numbers of current workers in all sorts of jobs in every section of the country are voluntarily walking away. There’s even an official economic measurement of this phenomenon called the “Quits Rate,” and it is surging beyond anything our economy has experienced in modern memory – in April, 4 million workers quit; in May, another 3.6 million left, in June, 3.9 million said adios! The “Quits” are so unexpected and so widespread that pundits have started dubbing this year “The Great Resignation.”

What’s wrong with people, why are such staggering numbers of Americans failing to do their jobs? But, wait – maybe that’s the wrong question. Maybe the corporate system’s “jobs” are failing the people. Consider this: The most common comment by those who’re walking out is, “I hate my job.”

Sometimes, when watching Congress in action, I can’t decide whether to laugh, cry, or check myself into an insane asylum.

Not all lawmakers are political hacks, quacks, and corporate toadies – but that contingent does seem to dominate. Most infuriating is that while purporting to represent the people, Congress routinely does what the American majority does not want done and fails to do what people do want. Take a peek at the cuts Congress is making to Joe Biden’s landmark infrastructure proposals.

This is a monumental, long-overdue undertaking to reinvest in America’s physical house and social underpinnings (everything from roads and broadband networks to child care and paid family leave). The package would deliver real, tangible benefits across our nation, especially for low- and middle-income families, so it is enormously popular. Yet, when the first half of the plan recently came to a vote in the House, Republicans turned it into a partisan mudwrestling show, loudly voting “NO” on such obvious needs as fixing decrepit bridges, providing clean tap water in every community, and opening pre-school education programs to all three- and four-year-olds.

Cynical Republican gamesmanship aside, even more infuriating is the clique of self-described “moderate” Democrats who pose as champions of workaday Americans, but constantly scuttle public policies that would make their lives better. For example, the GOP and corporate Democrats have jointly demanded a trillion-dollar “compromise” in Biden’s national investment plans. What’s being compromised? Not proposals to fund the corporate wish list, but long-postponed needs of everyday Americans, including home health care, free community college, affordable housing, wage hikes, environmental justice, etc.

The wealthy and their political enablers complain that America can’t afford such projects. But, hello – these aren’t “projects,” they’re people! And permitting politicos and lobbyists to leave them behind yet again would be an abominable moral failure of our society.