MEET AGITATOR JIM HIGHTOWER.

 

Jim Hightower writes the Hightower Lowdown, a national newsletter that exposes injustice in America, only he calls it exposing bushwackers, bullshitters, gooberheads, plasticized morons, moon howling...well, the adjectives, some invented by him, are numerous and humorous. He says he is an agitator..."the center post of the washing machine that gets out all the dirt." And, right now, he doesn't like the hucksters running a Democracy where 4 people, all of them hedge fund managers, each earned 10 Billion dollars last year, where 108 Kindergarten teachers split 1 million. The hedge fund managers pay taxes at a rate of 15% and the teachers pay at a rate of 35%. Democracy works best from the bottom up and includes everybody. That's you and me folks. Its revolution time for people tired of being the fire hydrants for all of those top dogs. And, the chorus sang, Hallelujah.



They did, but it wasn't quite in that order. First, the Mother Lode Martin Luther King Jr. Chapter, active in our area for 23 years, drew over 500 people to hear Hightower speak. Amazing because this is a very white, rural community.

The program began with Martin Luther King Jr.'s last speech on a movie screen. I had forgotten what a powerful and passionate speaker he was. It was an emotional moment to turn back the pages of time and remember, the women who died in a baptist church, Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus, little girls being escorted to all white schools by the National Guard in the fight for equal rights for black Americans;  a fight that is on going to this day, 48 years after his death.  Hightower reminded us that Katie Stanton, and the jailed and punished suffragettes didn't get the right to vote that they fought for either, but WE got it because of them.

And, that my friends is his point. Money now flows upward and the rich have so much money they can air condition hell while the poor and middle class struggles to make ends meet.

"We don't want charity, we want economic justice. And Congress, the House and the President is stealing from us with a fountain pen." He pointed to the current NAFTA agreement where 500 corporations and that included the Koch Brothers, met in secret, and hammered out an agreement and stuffed it down our throats without one member of a Union or anyone from the middle class and small business sitting at the table.

Hightower believes that people like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who don't accept money from the big super pacs can overcome the moneyed elites who have corrupted our politics and rigged our economy to squeeze the life out of the middle class.

Bernie's average donation is $23. Hightower says, you can't buy a presidency with $23. His campaign is about We The People. Hightower convinced me that, with Bernie, its time to rock the boat.

No one addresses him as Senator Sanders, he is just Bernie, and one of the poorest Senators in the pack. He hasn't parlayed his position to great wealth like most national office holders have.
He came from a low-income working class family in Brooklyn. He first worked as a carpenter, then film maker, writer and agitator. An agitator in college during the 60's, he moved to Vermont and began exposing Burlington money boys who ran the town for their own fun and profit. Then he stunned everyone by winning an election for Mayor in Burlington. Bernie has never abandoned his working class roots. I've changed my position to clearly stand with the candidate who says: "I can't do this, but WE can."


The program ended with everyone singing the song:  We Shall Overcome. Hightower was available to talk to people at a reception after the program.
wecanpetition.moveon.org.

STREET WISDOM

It doesn’t look like Congress is going to do anything, anytime soon. We are broke, in trouble and struggling. The food banks are overwhelmed. Cities are going broke. Higher education is unaffordable. People on the street are weathering this mess.  They will survive as the song says. And all around me I hear wisdom, wit and a bit of sarcasm that at least brings some levity to the mess.

From the New York Times:   “It’s been such a stunning year,” said Cecile Richards, the organization’s perpetually embattled president. “More than a million new activists joined Planned Parenthood, and our approval rating is at 68 percent. Congress is I think at 9.” (It may be time to stop pointing out that you have a higher approval rating than Congress. Really, everything has a higher approval rating than Congress. Termites. Zombies. Donald Trump.)

“The idea that we have to destroy the environment and kill workers to have a healthy economy must be put to rest. …regulations are actually catalysts of technical innovations and economic development.”  Negah Mouszoon.

“A nuclear disaster is too big a price to pay for our electric bill.”  Ralph Nader

From the Los Angeles Times:  "The health care law is likely to put the brakes on the profit bonanza from biotech drugs.”

“Don’t blame medicare. Fix it.”  Barry Rand, CEO AARP.

“...more tax breaks for the rich is only one of the symptoms of an econimic and political system that is grotesquely failing the average American.”‘ Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

“Instead of throwing children out of Head Start or cutting back on Community Health Centers, maybe we want to ask Exxon Mobil to actually pay taxes rather than get a refund.” Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)   (GE, Exxon,Citigroup, Boeing and others have paid little or no tax.)

“You need to understand, it isn’t gridlock in Congress, it is roadblock. Gridlock  happens, roadblock is deliberate.”  Congressional candidate Will Moore.

When students at Flagler College in Florida were asked to balance the budget, they had the same options that paralyze Washington. The human consequences of their decisions were very much on their minds as in: “… we don’t want to throw grandma out on the street and deny health care services.”  Hey, these kids are smart. They took the long view, sacrifices should be a shared responsibility. They didn’t cut education, protected the environment and didn’t touch Social Security.  They froze wages for congress; used carbon tax to clean up the environment. They made sizable defense cuts, closed tax loopholes and added or raised taxes including higher gasoline taxes and a new 5% sales tax that will make their Big Macs sky-high.  Across the board, they were evenhanded and sensible.
Don’t you just love it? Our kids are smarter than Congress.