Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the books "Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow" (2008) and "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos: A Work of Political Subversion" (1998). Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
Articles by this author
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Views Wednesday, December 30, 2020 'Lord of the Flies,' Revisited Many of us read William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" in high school — and it's still being taught. The 1954 novel depicts the gradual descent into barbaric darkness by a group of English schoolboys shipwrecked on a small, deserted island. Its portrayal of innate human depravity was hailed at the... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, December 16, 2020 Timeless Truths for Trying Times In a spoof of country music's sad songs of heartache and woe, the old "Hee Haw" TV show periodically featured a couple of its regulars dejectedly wailing a song of total anguish: "Gloom, despair, and agony on me "Deep, dark depression, excessive misery "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, December 09, 2020 Thinking of Amazon Workers This Holiday Season During the hectic holiday shopping season, Jeff Bezos' Amazon may seem like a great option, especially for us procrastinators. Anything you want can be shipped directly to your doorstep. All it takes is a few clicks on the Amazon website — and, of course, some of your hard-earned money. The media... Read more |
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Views Friday, December 04, 2020 Make USDA 'The People’s Department' Again Years ago, Robert Kennedy noted that progress is hard. “Progress is nice,” he said, “but its agent is change, and change has its enemies.” Kennedy’s recognition that gutsy, honest leadership is necessary to confront wealthy interests and advance the common good directly applies to one of the most... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, December 02, 2020 Who Cares Who the Secretary of Agriculture Is? Years ago, Robert Kennedy noted that making economic, political and social progress is hard because such advances require rejecting the same old business-as-usual policies that sustain the establishment's profits and power. "'Progress' is the nice word," he said. "But change is its motivator. And... Read more |
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Views Sunday, November 15, 2020 It’s Not Trump’s Country — Even in ‘Trump Country’ Trump may have lost his bid for reelection, but many will still wonder: How has America turned so right-wing that a narcissistic, wannabe-dictator like Trump was even in the running? A vocal of minority of the president’s supporters may be racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic. And a bunch of uber-... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, November 11, 2020 Trump's Anti-Labor Department In building glittery enclaves like Trump Tower, luxury resorts and casinos, our shady dealmaker of a president has routinely used lies, bankruptcies, union busting and plain-old wage theft to stiff the working people who built and staffed them. So, it's no surprise that, while bombastically... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, October 14, 2020 Sabotaging Democracy Little-known fact: In more and more races, the GOP doesn't have broad enough appeal to fairly produce an election majority, so it has resorted to rigging the system so a minority prevails. As far-right tactician Paul Weyrich once bluntly put it: "I don't want everybody to vote. ... Our leverage in... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, September 30, 2020 Trump's Rule of Lies and Partisan Judges Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump puffed himself up in full Trumpian pomposity to proclaim to us rubes: "We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else." Well, "nothing else" ... unless you count a record-shattering number of more than 20,000 documented lies... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, September 23, 2020 How the Right Rigs Elections Is it really so hard? Voting, I mean — smooth democratic elections with all citizens able to easily cast their ballots and with every ballot fairly counted. Is that too much for people to ask? After all, the mechanisms for assuring universal suffrage are well known, and the logistics are not... Read more |