Stories by Jim Hightower

Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the new book, "Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go With the Flow." (Wiley, March 2008) He publishes the monthly "Hightower Lowdown," co-edited by Phillip Frazer. subscribe to Jim Hightower's feed

The Smell of Hummer

Posted on: Oct 8, 2004, Source: AlterNet

The Hummer is an absurdly-expensive, gas-guzzling, low-performance, high-polluting, gussied-up chunk of automotive junk. Now Hummer cologne distills that into scent.

New York's Gooberhead Mayor

Posted on: Oct 6, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Getting caught in the crossfire of protesters and the NYPD is somehow your fault if you're put in jail.

Missing the Train

Posted on: Oct 1, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Is mass transit part of our future or an endangered government program?

Walking with Autocrats

Posted on: Sep 29, 2004, Source: AlterNet

By Bush cozying up to regimes that are repressive and dictatorial, he has undermined any claim that his foreign policy is on the moral high road.

How Do You Say "Offshoring"?

Posted on: Sep 24, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Call it what you want, the stealing of America's middle class future still continues at an accelerated rate.

"Fixing" Social Security

Posted on: Sep 22, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Are warnings of a needed "deep fix" within our Social Security system a load of hooey?

Making a Splash

Posted on: Sep 17, 2004, Source: AlterNet

The world's first interactive urinal is coming to a restroom near you.

The Corporate Sacking Of Iraq

Posted on: Sep 15, 2004, Source: AlterNet

AynRandian theorists have longed to create their utopia of a corporate state – now they have an entire economy at their disposal.

The Genuine Texas Roadhouse

Posted on: Sep 10, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Frivolous lawsuits are many times the result of corporate fakes bullying authentic businesses out of business.

The Homeland Security Insurance Scam

Posted on: Sep 8, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Why is our government shilling for insurance giants, fraudulently peddling policies to people who don't need them and will never collect on them?

A Cell Phone Club for Liars and Cheats

Posted on: Sep 4, 2004, Source: AlterNet

The invention of the cell phone brings together people of questionable moral integrity to form clubs like the "alibi and excuse club."

Selling Off New York City

Posted on: Aug 31, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Mayor Bloomberg might know the price of the city's soul, but he knows nothing about its value.

The Name Game

Posted on: Aug 27, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Stadiums, arenas, and so forth no longer bear recognizable names, but instead are branded with corporate logos that are Anywhere and Nowhere, USA.

Profiteering On America's Grunts

Posted on: Aug 24, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Keating is still lobbying congress to let his corporate clients continue picking the pockets of the underpaid grunts heading to Iraq. Is this the 'freedom' they're being asked to die for?

The Breaking News You Won't See

Posted on: Aug 20, 2004, Source: AlterNet

The corporate arbiters of our public airwaves deem it more important to broadcast re-runs of sit-coms than to cover our nation's quadrennial rituals of democracy.

Fleecing America's Soldiers

Posted on: Aug 16, 2004, Source: AlterNet

It's bad enough that our young men and women are thrust into a war of lies in Iraq, but it's a moral abomination that insurance gougers are allowed to prey on them at home.

The Pentagon's Revolving Door

Posted on: Aug 11, 2004, Source: AlterNet

The scam is to work a while at the Pentagon, gain insider knowledge and contacts, then peddle insider connections to corporations wanting more fat contracts from us taxpayers.

Unveiling the Corporate Greed Market

Posted on: Aug 6, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Corporations today don't operate in a "free market" – they operate in a greed market, aided and abetted by the political puppets they put in office.

Going for the Gold in Greece

Posted on: Aug 4, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Where there's money, there's always a way, and corporations are resolving their CEOs' Olympic security dilemma by buying luxurious protection packages for them.

Is This America?

Posted on: Jul 30, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Innocents fight Bush's absurd, un-American assault on the constitutional right to dissent.

Give Reagan His Due

Posted on: Jul 27, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Believe it or not, they are pushing to have Ronnie's face carved into Mt. Rushmore and to off Alexander Hamilton from the $10 bill and replace him with Reagan's likeness.

The Nuttiness of King George the W

Posted on: Jul 23, 2004, Source: AlterNet

They're insane – loopy zealots fueled by their own extremist fumes to implement their plutocratic, autocratic, imperialistic vision of America – and it's time we stopped beating around the bush about it.

Sales Clerk, Ph.D

Posted on: Jul 21, 2004, Source: AlterNet

The number one job-creator for America's future? Restaurant workers, including fast food. You don't need a high-tech degree, you need a hair net!

Covering Up the Reality of Offshoring

Posted on: Jul 20, 2004, Source: AlterNet

The labor department has recently come up with a new set of smiley-faced statistics to try to defuse the politically-explosive reality that CEOs are now offshoring hundreds of thousands of America's middle-class, white collar jobs.

Politicizing America's National Parks

Posted on: Jul 16, 2004, Source: AlterNet

The administration has issued new, upbeat talking points, instructing all park personnel not only to speak positively about park conditions, but also to praise George himself for being so good for our parks.

Playing Politics with Jobs

Posted on: Jul 14, 2004, Source: AlterNet

What's to happen to the workers who were made to serve as props for George's pitch about the power of trickle-down economics, then tossed aside?

Battling 'Evil-doers' Begets Evil

Posted on: Jul 9, 2004, Source: AlterNet

The tiny nation of Macedonia has now learned that its leaders also have been caught up in the hellish insanity and depravity of Bush's self-declared unlimited war

Presidential Morality

Posted on: Jul 6, 2004, Source: AlterNet

What we've now learned from the 9/11 Commission and recent books by White House insiders is that George launched a war for the worst possible reason: Because he could.

Declare Economic Independence

Posted on: Jul 2, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Austin is hardly alone in suffering a steady erosion of our homegrown businesses to impersonal corporate giants, big-box stores and cookie-cutter chains. It's probably happening where you live, too.

Don't Mess with Our "Organic" Label

Posted on: Jun 29, 2004, Source: AlterNet

But keep your BS detectors at the ready, for this agriculture department won't stop trying to sneak ever-slicker and stinkier agribusiness schemes past us.

Give Reagan His Due

Posted on: Jun 25, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Just for old-times sake, here are a few more golden chestnuts from Ronnie's tenure: James Watt, ketchup as a vegetable, Star Wars, a tax credit for segregated Bob Jones University...

Lifestyles of White-collar Criminals

Posted on: Jun 22, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Being bad -- at least for white collar criminals -- can put you in demand on the corporate lecture circuit.

A Corporation That Breaks the Greed Mold

Posted on: Jun 22, 2004, Source: AlterNet

The bottom-line dictates that wages and benefits be slashed and that offshoring be pursued with a vengeance. It's not personal, just business.

The Power of People's Media

Posted on: Jun 16, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Unabashedly progressive and fiercely independent media outlets reach more people than Rupert Murdoch's Fox Network.

How Do You Say 'Offshoring'?

Posted on: Jun 15, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Rather than offshoring, corporate greedheads now call it 'remote global sourcing,' or 'right-shoring' to disguise the perfidy.

The Grand Larceny of Pinstripe Thieves

Posted on: Jun 15, 2004, Source: AlterNet

In this current three-year burst of productivity, America has lost jobs, and wages have either stagnated or fallen while CEOs reap the benefits.

The Ugly Economics of Privatized War

Posted on: Jun 7, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Sometimes it takes the unspeakable horror of war to unveil ugly truths about national policies that our so-called leaders don't want us to notice, much less discuss.

The Run for the Money

Posted on: Jun 7, 2004, Source: AlterNet

It's not Smarty Jones that's got me all excited about horse racing. It's the appalling behavior of corporatized race jockeys.

India Rebels Against High-tech Plutocracy

Posted on: May 31, 2004, Source: AlterNet

My, my -- the highly-touted benefits of globalizing America's high-tech jobs have just gotten a political comeuppance.

Outrage Over the Outrage

Posted on: May 31, 2004, Source: AlterNet

Leave it to the kooks in congress and their sidekicks--the right wing pundits and talk-show yakkers--to see a "liberal conspiracy" behind the torture photos coming out of U.S. military prisons in Iraq.

Pages