From Q-Anon nuttiness to JD Vance's "Deep State" quackery, wacko right-wing conspiracies have oozed into the center of Republican politics.

But don't let their goofiness obscure the fact that there is indeed a very real plot to rig America's economic and political system, causing wealth and power to flow uphill — from the workaday majority to moneyed elites.

This rigging is not done by some cartoonish cabal of ogres in a secret lair, but by prominent artificial intelligence (AI) tech barons and other Poo-Bahs of America's corporate royalty. They are soft-handed thieves, discreetly robbing us from the cozy confines of corporate boardrooms, ornate courtrooms and legislative backrooms. Why should they dirty their hands in public scuffles with workers, consumers, local communities and others "pests" when they can deploy public officials to do their grub work?

Consider the gabillionaire huckster, Elon Musk. He barged into Mississippi to build a massive AI data center that would have 57 gas turbines spewing toxic pollution over several Black neighborhoods — without even bothering to get required environmental permits.

It was a gross violation of the Clean Air Act — so the endangered families sued in April to stop the imperious profiteer.

But instead of facing the perp himself — surprise! — the locals were confronted by federal lawyers deployed by President Donald Trump to kill the people's lawsuit and protect Musk's toxic project. Going further, Trump's "Justice" department asserted that we citizens have no legal right to pursue Clean Air enforcement if the federal government objects.

Did I mention that Musk gave $157 million to Trump's last election campaign? And that's how the system gets rigged against us.

SHOULDN'T NATURE HAVE A LEGAL RIGHT TO EXIST?

America's legal system proclaims that even lifeless, man-made, paper entities called "corporations" are endowed with the human rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

But if a fabricated, inanimate, corporate thing can have enforceable rights to legal protections and life privileges — why not natural beings like ... well, nature? Not just favored animals, but all complex, living, breathing, sentient, cooperative, reproductive beings. Trees, for one obvious example. Or rivers, prairies, marshes and other organic bodies that have a life of their own and a reason to exist beyond our exploitation of them.

That's why the townspeople of Vaudreuil in Quebec, Canada, have unanimously approved a "Declaration of the Rights of Trees," proclaiming that these beneficial and beautiful neighbors have an inherent right to exist, thrive and enjoy the protections of law. This is the latest advance of the "Rights of Nature" movement. It maintains that forests, waterways and other interconnected living beings of nature are not mere "property" of human profiteers to be poisoned, clear-cut, excavated and otherwise destroyed. Rather, they must be regarded as full citizens of our world, with essential, legally enforceable rights of their own — especially the most basic right: The right to exist.

Corporate opponents to the Rights of Nature movement cry that the very idea is unnatural — a tree can't even speak, so there is no way it can exercise a legal right.

Excuse me, but corporations can't speak either, for they are mere paper constructs. So, lawyers are hired to speak for them. The same system of representation can and should apply to nature. For information and action, go to CenterForEnvironmentalRights.org and Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (garn.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: Drew Dizzy Graham at Unsplash