Posts by Jim Hightower

Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of "Thieves In High Places: They've Stolen Our Country And It's Time to Take It Back." He publishes the monthly "Hightower Lowdown," co-edited by Phillip Frazer.

Sarah Palin May Be a Pit Bull in Lipstick, but She's No Populist
Posted by Jim Hightower, JimHightower.com on September 4, 2008 at 6:06 PM.

"Perfect populist pitch." That's how CBS political pundit Jeff Greenfield described Sarah Palin's VP acceptance speech.

Excuse me, but real populists don't support profiteering schemes of Big Oil or embrace the extension and expansion of tax giveaways to Wall Street speculators and corporate chieftans. Palin might claim to be a pit bull in lipstick, but she's damn sure no populist. As Greenfield must surely know in his less infatuated moments, she is to populism what near beer is to beer -- only not as close. Indeed, she's the candidate of the plutocrats. Mary Ellen Lease -- a real hell-raising populist from the 1880s and 90s -- would be appalled at the media's perversion of this historic and proud term.

Jim Hightower on "Cowboy George, Horse Thief" [VIDEO]
Posted by Jim Hightower, AlterNet on February 13, 2008 at 12:23 PM.

We've learned the hard way over the past seven years that George W lives in his own fantasy world-a place in which reality is whatever he wants it to be, facts notwithstanding.

We should have known this from the start of his White House tenure, for he practically painted a picture of it for us. More accurately, he showed his predilection for delusion by hanging his favorite painting in the Oval Office. It's a 1916 cowboy scene by W.H.D. Koerner titled "A Charge to Keep," and, in Bush's own words, it depicts a "a horseman determinedly charging up what appears a steep and rough trail."

In Bush's head, that rider epitomizes his own courageous political journey, dashing ahead against steep odds and naysayers (who are embodied in the art work by two other horsemen following the daring hero). Indeed, many visitors who've been shown the painting by Bush have commented thtat the hard-charging character bears a remarkable resemblance to George himself.

Over the years, Bush has added a Christian morality tale to the painting, declaring that the artist based it on a Methodist hymn, and that the indomitable horseman really is a circuit-riding minister rushing passionately ahead to spread the religion of Methodism (which happens to be George's own chosen faith).

It's all very inspiring, except for one small detail: It's not true. It turns out that W.H.D. Koerner painted the work to illustrate a Saturday Evening Post short story entitled: "The Slipper Tounge." The story is about a slick-tongued horse thief, and Koerner's painting--far from illustrating bold moral leadership-depicts the horse thief frantically fleeing a lynch mob.

This is Jim Hightower saying... So when Bush says that he see himself in the painting he might inadvertently be revealing the truth.

Jim Hightower: Republicans Want to Put Reagan on Rushmore [VIDEO]
Posted by Jim Hightower, AlterNet on January 16, 2008 at 12:46 PM.

I must admit that the seven-year reign of Bush & Company makes me yearn for the years of Ronald Reagan, when the term "conservative" merely meant right wing, rather than full-tilt, bull-goose loopy.

Still, let's not get our national memory so warped that we put "The Gipper" on a pedestal, as today's far-right ideologues want to do. Bad enough that they keep trying to stick Reagan's name on public facilities all across America (apparently oblivious to the irony of naming these things for the guy who claimed to hate government) - but now they're pushing to put his mug on Mount Rushmore. I kid you not! One website even offers a retouched photo of Rushmore that superimposes Ronnie's likeness onto the mountaintop, right alongside Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln.

Even more hilarious is the scramble by this year's GOP presidential contenders to one-up each other in their claim to be the New Reagan. This is a hoot, because if Reagan was running today, the ideologically-correct voters who control the Republican primary elections would savage him for his record on practically every hot-button issue.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Jim Hightower's Gifts for a Happier New Year [VIDEO]
Posted by Jim Hightower, AlterNet on December 21, 2007 at 4:25 AM.

Gifts for a happier new year

Wait till you hear about the gifts I gave to some of America's power elites for Christmas.

To each of our Congress critters, I sent my fondest wish that from now on they receive the exact same income, health care, and pensions that we average citizens get. If they receive only the American average, it might make them a bit more humble - and less willing to ignore the needs of regular folks.

For America's CEO's, my gift is a beautifully boxed, brand new set of corporate ethics. It's called the golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Going to pollute someone's neighborhood? Then you have to live there, too. Going to slash wages and benefits? Then slash yours as well. Going to move your manufacturing to sweatshops in China? Then put your office right inside the worst of those sweatshops. Executive life won't be as luxurious, but CEO's would enjoy a new purity of spirit.

For George W and his cohort "Buckshot" Cheney, I sent some tonics they can take to help them come clean when congressional investigators and grand juries get into their White House files. Confession, after all, can be good for the soul.

For Democratic leaders in congress and the Democratic presidential aspirants, I sent jumbo glue guns so they can stiffen their spines. With regular injections, the party might finally stand up to Bush's imperial presidency and to corporate kleptocracy in Washington.

I didn't forget Republican presidential candidates, either. For Mitt, Rudy, Fred, Huck, and the boys, I sent memberships in the Reality-of-the-Month Club, which will deliver a new bottle of real world experience each month. By either drinking these elixirs or rubbing them into their scalps, they can reduce their ideological fantasies and gradually ease their way toward sanity.

This is Jim Hightower saying... If the power elites accept these gifts, we'll all have a happier New Year!

Jim Hightower: It's Holiday Shopping Season for Lobbyists Too [VIDEO]
Posted by Jim Hightower, AlterNet on December 15, 2007 at 4:06 AM.

'Tis the shopping season, and many bedraggled consumers are going store to store seeking gifts for loved ones. But the most determined shoppers of all this season are corporate lobbyists, scurrying from agency to agency in Washington in search of special favors for themselves. They're not interested in giving, but in getting.

Indeed, they've already given. They put tens of millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of George W and the GOP, and they've enjoyed big-time payback for seven years. But time is running out - Republicans lost control of congress, and Bush is soon to go, so corporate lobbyists are now on a frantic, last-minute shopping spree, grabbing all they can, while they can.

Their shopping list is filled with requests for the Bushites to rig regulatory rules to benefit their industries. Coal barons, for example, are pleading for permission to dump tons of rubble and waste into the valleys and streams of Appalachia. This "spoil," as they call it, is the by-product of an environmentally- devastating mining shortcut called mountaintop removal. To get at the coal, they blow up the top third of these beautiful mountains. Rather than hauling off their rubble, they want final OK simply to shove it down the mountainside, burying the streams, animals, and everything else below.

On other fronts, such chicken potentates as Perdue want an exemption from public health laws that ban massive releases of ammonia from their factory farms; electric power plants want to increase their toxic emissions without the "burden" of installing pollution controls; and big business lobbyists are demanding new rules to keep workers from using family leave laws, which allow unpaid time-off to care for newborns or deal with family illness.

This is Jim Hightower saying... These truly are gifts that would keep on giving - giving profit to the few, and pain to the many.

Jim Hightower on Sweatshop Crucifixes [VIDEO]
Posted by Jim Hightower, AlterNet on December 6, 2007 at 12:00 PM.

Just in time for Christmas comes something that Christians worldwide will consider to be an abomination: crucifixes and other religious articles made in deplorable sweatshops in China and being sold not only in America's Christian stores - but even in churches.

A highly-respected workers' rights group, The National Labor Committee, has documented the brutal sweatshop conditions at the Junxingye factory in Southern China. Here, young women workers - many only teenagers - are forced to toil from 8 am to 11:30 pm, seven days a week, making Christian artifacts.

They're paid 26 1/2 cents an hour - less than half of China's miserly minimum wage. Out of this meager pay, workers are docked for bad food and bunks in cramped, filthy dorms. This lowers their pay to nine cents an hour - less than $10 a week. They get no sick days, holidays, or maternity leave - and, ironically, they have no religious rights.

National Labor committee found crucifixes from this factory being sold at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral - for $29.95 a piece! The Cathedral has now pulled these products from its gift shops, which is an essential ethical step, but barely a start. The church must use its full moral authority and enormous purchasing power to clean up China's sweatshop factories engaged in religious commerce.

Far worse than any one gift shop is the Association for Christian Retail - a consortium of some 2,000 religious stores that do nearly $5 billion a year in sales of Christian products. Like Wal-Mart, this profitable economic entity has shifted its manufacturing en masses to China, yet it has not revealed the addresses of its factories, much less the labor conditions in them.

This is Jim Hightower saying... Surely they can answer the question: What Would Jesus Do? For information, call the National Labor Committee: 212-242-3002.

Jim Hightower on Voting With Your Dollars [VIDEO]
Posted by Jim Hightower, AlterNet on November 27, 2007 at 1:00 PM.

Hey, it's the holiday season - time to go out there and do your part for our American economy by buying tons of cheap stuff made in China!

Wait - that doesn't make sense, does it? First, you'll notice that most of those "cheap" goods from China aren't really cheap by the time they're on the shelves of Wal-Mart, Nieman Marcus, and other U.S. retailers. Yes, they're produced by cheap labor, but this savings is pocketed by the brand-name marketers who get their stuff made there.

Second, how does it help our economy to shift America's manufacturing to China? Notice that our middle-class jobs are disappearing and our country is falling deeper into debt, while China has the fastest-growing economy in the world and now owns a big chunk of our debt. Then there's the little matter of toxic products imported from China, including everything from food to toys.

Isn't there a better way to spend our consumer dollars? Yes. Buy Made-in-the-USA products this holiday season... and throughout the year! Do such products exist? Yes, again - though you wont find many at your local MegaMart. Your best bet is to try local stores and internet shops, where you can find a cornucopia of U.S.-made goods.

For example, a web site called toysmadeinamerica.com lists dozens of internet locations for all sorts of gifts you can buy for the tykes on your list - dolls, doll houses, wooden trains, space-age action toys, playscapes, puppets, puzzles, banjos, books, board games, tutus, marbles, pogo sticks, skateboards, wiffle balls, play kitchens, and so much more, made right here by Americans. Also check out usmadetoys.com, shopforamerica.com and madeinusa.org to point you in the right direction.

This is Jim Hightower saying... We are not powerless consumers. We're sovereign citizens who can send a potent message to corporate profiteers by voting with our dollars. So... do it!

Jim Hightower: Help Save the GOP From Their Own Socialism [VIDEO]
Posted by Jim Hightower, AlterNet on November 21, 2007 at 11:30 AM.

It's always impressive to see a politician take an unbending stand on principle, so I salute George W for going against popular opinion by vetoing the SCHIP bill, which would have extended health coverage to some six million uninsured children in our country.

Bush said that what irked him about this children's health proposal is the principle of providing government-financed, coverage which he derided as "federalized" medicine. George, you see, is a die hard privatization ideologue, and he insists that people should get their health care from the free market, not the government. The vast majority of his Republican colleagues in Congress agreed, voting to uphold his veto of the children's bill.

This news prompted Alan, one of our stalwart [listeners] [readers] in Fort Collins, Colorado, to suggest a national campaign in support of this principled stand that the Republicans in Washington have taken. Since Bush and his GOP allies don't believe in federalized medicine, Alan says it is our duty to free them of the burden of having their own health coverage paid for by us taxpayers! As a matter of principle, we must take away their government health plans and let them buy their own in the free market.

This idea offers two pluses: one, taxpayers will no longer have to pay benefits to politicians who are ideologically opposed to them, and, two, the money saved can be redirected to the millions of American children without health coverage.

This is Jim Hightower saying... If Alan's idea appeals to you, call the GOP Congressional conference and urge that its members give up their "federalized" health plans: (202) 225-5107. And while you're at it, tell them to forego their socialized government retirement money, too. After all, it's the principle of the thing.

Jim Hightower: Bush Administration Attacks Our Freedom to Protest [VIDEO]
Posted by Jim Hightower, AlterNet on November 14, 2007 at 12:30 PM.

George W likes to claim that global terrorists are out to attack America because "They hate our freedoms." But we're learning that it's really the Bushites themselves who hate America's freedoms.

Retired Army Col. Ann Wright and one of America's leading peace activists, Medea Benjamin, have recently felt the bullying hate of the Bush regime. Both women have been very vigorous practitioners of our freedom to speak out and assemble in opposition to government policies, using these freedoms to protest the war in Iraq. They've put themselves on the line and been willing to undergo several arrests for their nonviolent civil disobedience.

This is as American as the 4th of July. Yet Wright, Benjamin, and civil libertarians everywhere were stunned to learn last August that Bush's FBI has suddenly turned this misdemeanor into a weapon of political intimidation, using it to bar the two women from traveling to Canada... and perhaps to other nations.

When they tried to visit Canada, Wright and Benjamin were detained by Canadian customs officials and told that their names were on an FBI no-entry list. Even though this list is meant to stop fugitives, potential terrorists, and violent felons - not peaceful protesters - they were told that they would have to apply for "criminal rehabilitation" and pay a fine if they ever wanted to enter Canada.

Unintimidated, the women have since tried to re-enter, this time at the invitation of five members of parliament to come speak to that assembly. Yet, Canada's officials have bowed to the Bushites, honoring the FBI's no-entry list, rather than respecting their own parliament. The FBI refuses to say why non-violent protesters are on a terrorist list.

Chillingly, the U.S. media have ignored this story, but you can learn more about this blatant assault on our freedoms by going to www.codepinkalert.org.

Jim Hightower on "Panties for Peace": A Very Personal Protest in Burma [VIDEO]
Posted by Jim Hightower, AlterNet on November 7, 2007 at 12:00 PM.

Over the years, I've come across some very clever protest actions, but here's one that just beats the pants off all the others.

It's an international women's protest against the brutal military dictatorship in Burma, and it's called "Panties for Peace." I kid you not. But while it's playful, it definitely is not to be laughed at.

Launched by the Lanna Action for Burma Committee, based in Thailand, this creative group learned that the thuggish military men oppressing the people of Burma are not only brutal, but also very, very superstitous. It turns out that one of their phobic beliefs is that they must never, ever come into contact with female undies, because even to touch a pair of knickers would sap them of their strength.

Thus, the Action for Burma group has invited women everywhere to ship their undergarments to Burmese embassies throughout the world as a calculated cultural insult to the ruling junta of General Than Shwe, who is said to be especially superstitous. One group of women sent 140 pairs of their dainties to Burma's embassy in Geneva, and Burmese embassies in England, Australia, Singapore, and several European countries are also under underwear seige.

Liz Hilton, one of the Action for Burma activists, notes that the junta is famous for its abuse of women, including using rape as a weapon of war, so this protest action "is a way for women around the world to express their outrage." She adds that she and others are exasperated by the failure of world leaders to do anything effective about the regime's repression, so delivering scads of scivvies allows ordinary women to send a personal and culturally-powerful message of rejection to the junta.

In case you want to send your own message, the address of Burma's U.S. embassy is 2300 S Street, NW, Washington, DC 20008.

Jim Hightower: Revisiting the Arrest of Protesters at the RNC in '04 [VIDEO]
Posted by Jim Hightower on October 31, 2007 at 6:35 AM.

If you just can't bring yourself to believe that our government authorities would even think of suppressing the legitimate protests of peaceful demonstrators - look at the record of court cases recently coming out of New York.

You might recall media reports from the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, when 1,100 people were arrested in one day during anti-war demonstrations. Most media pundits joined the authorities in praising the police for stopping these "dangerous troublemakers." But the city now faces 605 lawsuits from people contending they were merely exercising their right to free speech and assembly - making no trouble at all.

And now, based on witnesses and numerous videos taken of the demonstrations and arrests, protesters are winning their cases. It turns out that police were making mass arrests of innocent people - then making up arrest reports charging people with crimes they did not commit.

Take the example of two guys and a young woman who were videoed trying to string a banner onto the New York public library. "You can't hang signs [there]," an officer told them, and they immediately took it down. "You can hold it, but you can't hang it," the officer said. So, they did. Two seconds later, as the two men held the banner on the stairs of the library, other police moved in and arrested them.

When the police filed their arrest complaint, they charged the three young people with "obstructing the entire intersection so no cars or pedestrians could pass through." The woman was also charged with refusal to obey a police order and leading a parade through the intersection without a permit - even though the video clearly showed that she had never left the library steps.

It's not the demonstrators who are out of control, it's the authorities. And they're not merely cracking down on a few people - they're trampling the Constitutional rights of all of us.

Jim Hightower: Are Rudy, Mitt, and Fred Living In Your World? [VIDEO]
Posted by Jim Hightower on October 24, 2007 at 5:00 AM.

Gosh, I want to go to GOPland. What a wonderful place it is: sunny skies every day, bluebirds of happiness everywhere, and an always-booming economy that's spreading wealth to everyone!

At least that's the picture that the top Republican presidential contenders want you to believe. Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson are floating around in a Disney-like bubble that has no room for middle-class anxiety or economic reality. All three are millionaires, and in their bubble, there's a golden economy of low inflation, high employment, free trade, Wall Street wealth, and endless economic growth. As the bubbly Mitt Romney said in an exuberant moment: "Well, I mean, the market is a wonderful thing... the sky's the limit."

Meanwhile, back down here on earth, there's a very different world that America's workaday majority is experiencing. For example, on the very day these pollyannas were enthusing about low inflation, George W's own energy department reported that the cost of home heating oil will jump 22 percent this winter. No inflation? Have any of these millionaires bought a gallon of milk recently, or paid a health insurance premium?

Speaking of health care, has their happy bubble not been pierced by the hard news that 2.2 million more Americans were added to the uninsured rolls last year? That's the sixth straight year that the ranks of the uninsured have grown, leaving 47 million of our people with no health coverage - the highest total on record.

And sure, there's high employment. But at poverty wages! Most Americans have seen their incomes fall in the "boom economy" that these guys are so glibly praising. While they sing zipadedodah together, two-thirds of Americans say the economy is either headed to recession or already there.

Check you own pocketbook. Are Rudy, Mitt, and Fred living in your world?