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Jim Hightower"s Lowdown

News and shows about the progressive, democratic populist rebellion from former Texas Ag Commissioner and NYT best-selling author Jim Hightower.

news & politics

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What If Our Lawmakers Were Working Class People?

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/05/23

Whatzamatta with Congress? And most of our state legislatures, too? Why do these so-called representative bodies keep stiffing middle-class and poor families, refusing to respond to the most urgent ne…

An Anti-Abortion Creep: Worse than a Snake in the Grass

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/05/21

Let me be clear that I mean no disrespect to reptiles when I note that Jonathan Mitchell is a snake. An extremist right-wing Texas lawyer, Mitchell is actually creepier and all-together more diabolical that your average serpent could think of being. Jonathan slithers around the country as a self-appointed anti-abortion vigilante, terrorizing women’s advocates, health clinics, and doctors. And now (turning truly creepy), he’s singling-out

Friday Signpost: Your Music for the Movement...

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/05/17

Remember late last year when we asked you for your favorite political and protest songs? We’ve listened to the 1960s, and the 1970s, so now it’s time for… you guessed it… the 1980s! Since GenX comprises half of the staff here at Hightower HQ, we were especially jazzed to see this decade’s list— we grew up with a mainstream culture of Reagan and “greed is good” BS, but music always gave us both a lot of hope in our working class lives that things could

God Bless Nurses. And Please Hurry!

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/05/16

Every religion prioritizes care for the needy. Christianity’s Benedictine Rule, for example, puts care of the sick atop the moral order, “above and before every other duty.” Really – even above the holy Wall Street mandate that medical and insurance conglomerates must squeeze every last penny of profits out of America’s corporate-care system? Well, gosh, they say, let’s not go crazy with this religious stuff! There’s morality… and then there’s

That Stench of Corruption You Smell is Coming from...

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/05/14

We Texans are long-accustomed to enduring stormy outbursts of corruption among our top state legislators. The spectacle of lawmakers taking corporate bribes to provide legislative favors, tax breaks, government contracts, and such is as common as Spring tornadoes – and even more destructive to the public good.

Hightower’s Heroes in History: The She-roes of...

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/05/10

Gather ’round, friends, and let us learn a little bit Mother’s Day, or rather Mothers’ Day (plural possessive, that is). Today’s lesson is not just a lesson in history – it’s also a lesson in feminism. Women* have often pulled together to help each other, through times of war, oppression, and frankly, basic survival. They are the glue that has held many important social movements together.

Culture War Stupidity Plunges Into Absurdity

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/05/09

Right-wing culture warriors have been relentlessly attacking people’s personal liberties – running hellish crusades to deny our freedom to vote, to read what we want, to form labor unions, to make our own reproductive decisions… etc.

Gutting Our Public Post Offices: Oh What Joy!

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/05/07

Hoo boy… DeJoy! Woe is us (the American people) for having our jewel of a national Postal Service saddled with a corporate-minded Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy. Formerly CEO of a private shipping contractor, DeJoy’s chief qualification for running this invaluable public service is that he’s been a major donor to Republican politicians – including Donald Trump, who appointed him to the post.

Hey Democrats: Find the Party’s Future in Its...

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/05/02

A farmer friend of mine once bemoaned the fact that the Democrat we’d both supported for president, Bill Clinton, was hugging up Wall Street and stiffing family farmers. “I don’t mind losing when we lose,” my friend said, “but I hate losing when we win.”

Celebrating workers and labor on May Day

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/05/01

While we here in the US celebrate Labor Day in September, the rest of the world is celebrating its workers today, May 1st. From the Wikipedia summary, here’s a good overview: Traditionally, 1 May is the date of the European spring festival of May Day. In 1889, the Marxist International Socialist Congress met in Paris and established the Second International as a successor to the earlier International Workingmen's Association. They adopted a resolution for a "great international demonstration"

What Should Politics Do? Ask Woody Guthrie

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/04/30

Woody Guthrie’s prescription for inequality in America was straightforward: “Rich folks got your money with politics. You can get it back with politics.” For Guthrie, “politics” meant more than voting, since both parties routinely cough-up candidates who meekly accept the business-as-usual system of letting bosses and bankers control America’s wealth and power. It’s useless, he said, to expect change to come from a “choice” between Tweedledumb

A Century of Third Party Independent Progressive...

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/04/26

Hightower is on the road again this weekend, this time visiting Madison, WI to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Fighting Bob La Follette’s independent run for the presidency. Fighting who? What? If you’ve never heard of Robert La Follette, you’ve got a treasure trove of rabble-rousing history awaiting you in his

The True Story About Coca-Cola’s Plastic Fairy Tale

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/04/25

Years ago, Coca-Cola excitedly debuted a new formula for its soda, dubbing it “New Coke.” Consumers hated it, and sales plummeted – a marketing fiasco. But here comes Coke again, pushing an even worse product: “A Better Plastic Bottle,” trumpeting it as “100% Recycled.” Coke really needs an environmental PR goose-up, because today’s consumers know and care a lot about the massive plastic contamination of our planet – and Coke has been ranked as

Special Recognition for Six GOP Gubernatorial Goobers

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/04/24

While 4,300 workers in Volkswagen’s auto factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, were about to vote on whether to join the United Auto Workers (UAW), thus making their plant the first in the South to have a unionized workforce, suddenly the governors of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas burst on the scene.

The Big Apple’s Mayor Takes a Big Bite Out of Democracy

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/04/23

And now: A special report from the Department of Really Bad Ideas. And this one is a doozie. It comes from Hizzoner Eric Adams, the present mayor of New York City. Like mayors everywhere, Adams is routinely expected to respond to city council members, state reps, members of Congress, and other elected officials who ask for help on city issues and problems affecting the people they represent. After all, that’s how it’s supposed to work – local folks have an issue needing city

Friday Signpost: Learn How to Listen—and Win—with...

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/04/19

When we hear the term “canvassing” with regard to politics, it often brings up ideas of well-meaning volunteers going door-to-door in communities outside of their own to help persuade those residents to vote one way or another. It turns out, this kind of canvassing is not that successful in moving the important needles of tight races, and can even create resentment in areas that are otherwise abandoned by national and regional political machinery.

Where’s George Orwell Today? Texas!

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/04/18

If you think the GOP’s Congress of Clowns represents the fringiest, freakiest, pack of politicos that MAGA-world can hurl at us – you haven’t been to Texas. It’s widely known, of course, that Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott, and most other top Republican officials here are obsequious Trump acolytes. Thus, Texas is infamously racing against Florida to be declared the stupidest, meanest, most-repressive state government in America, constantly making demonic attacks on women’s

Can’t Oil Barons Ever Be Honest? (Hint: No)

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/04/16

Former New Mexico Gov. Bruce King once opposed a bill because, he said, he feared it would “open a whole box of Pandoras.” An odd rhetorical twist, but it would be helpful if today’s ego-bloated, high-tech billionaires and corporate profiteers had a bit of self-restraint, rather than thinking their money equals genius. For example, such doofuses are presently pushing convoluted schemes to “solve” our globe’s technology-caused climate crisis with – what else

Happy Hour with Hightower: April Ask Me Anything Video

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/04/16

Breaking the two-party duopoly, poor people’s food, Netanyahu versus Gaza, how Texas turned red, who’s doing good grassroots organizing, Thomas Paine, and much more

Why Are We Letting Greedheads and Ideologues Kill Our...

Jim Hightower"s Lowdown ·

2024/04/11

Before there was a USA – before our Constitution was adopted, and even before our 1776 Declaration of Independence – one of America’s best democratic institutions was already delivering for the people: The Post Office.

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