E-I-E-I-O! If Republican agriculture policy were a crop, farmers would plow it under. Why? Because it's worthless.

Worse than worthless, GOP policy: No. 1: bilks taxpayers to pay billions of dollars a year to bail out the biggest corporate farms; No. 2: it forces productive family farmers out of business by intentionally eliminating their markets; and No. 3: it rips off consumers by letting food conglomerates gouge us with monopolistic price hikes.

Consider Presidnt Doanld Trump's ideological tariff nonsense. It has needlessly shut off multibillion-dollar markets that America's farmers count on, while simultaneously jacking up the price they must pay for essentials like fertilizer and diesel fuel. The Republican tariff war has crushed farm income, leading the GOP's once-proud "free market" lawmakers to race to rebrand themselves as Big Business Socialists. So far this year, they have handed out $55 billion in crop welfare payments, with trainloads of that going to the biggest agribusiness operators.

Of course, Trumpers don't really care about saving farmers, but about saving their own political hides. Notice that while they're doling out government welfare checks to Big Ag, they're coldly dismissing the real pain of workaday families who are being knocked flat by skyrocketing food prices.

Meanwhile, Trump himself admits his agbiz giveaways are just partisan politics. Campaigning in Kansas for Roger Marshall, one of his sycophantic Congress critters, he promised to enact another subsidy for the region's corn farmers. BUT ONLY if Kansans re-elect Marshall next week. If the people choose the Democratic contender, Potentate Trump says: "I'm not doing it."

There you have it: Farm vote bribery, another example of the current GOP Kakistocracy — government by the very worst people in society.

HOW TO ARM NATURE AGAINST CORPORATE PROFITEERS

There's a hunter's nightmare in which a group of them flush some rabbits out of the brush. But rather than scampering away, the furry bunnies turn toward their stalkers. "Run," shouts one of the hunters. "Run for your life — the rabbits have guns!"

Arming animals would make the sport of hunting a bit more sporting, wouldn't it? Well, what if we did give all wildlife a fighting chance against the destructive firepower of profiteers who so carelessly ravage their habitats and kill them off? Of course, we can't arm nature with guns, but we could recognize that other species and ecosystems are living creatures with intrinsic legal rights to exist and flourish, thus giving nature its day in court to defend its well-being.

Like us humans, the lakes, forests, wildlife, etc. could have legal status to sue and be represented by lawyers to protect themselves from mindless exploitation, injury and death. This Rights-of-Nature concept is already being applied in such countries as Ecuador and New Zealand — and more than three dozen U.S. cities and towns have passed ordinances acknowledging that various natural resources in their areas have inherent rights to take polluters and other despoilers to court.

Ironically, the corporate powers — who have perverted law, logic and nature to have their lifeless, profiteering entities declared "persons" — are aghast that Mother Nature can have rights that can counter the corporate claim that their right to profit is absolute.

At its core, the Rights-of-Nature movement is asserting the obvious: Earth's biosphere is not a free candy store for our taking. We are one with the natural world and must find ways to cooperate fully with it for our own survival. To learn more and connect to action, go to the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund: www.celdf.org.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Dan Meyers at Unsplash