Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 12, October 13, 2003

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Jim Hightower is an old-fashioned populist, urging the people (to take the phrase of an 1890's agricultural populist) "to raise less corn and more hell."

He says right out loud what many of us think: that the crew in charge now is not just people we have disagreements with, but a wrecking gang intent of rolling back years of gains of civil liberties and economic equality in favor of the wealthiest 1% of America.

His book titles give you the flavor: "Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country--and Its Time to Take It Back", and "If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates" (2001)

Through that, his web site (opposite), radio show (until canceled) and personal appearances, he tries to get the word to people that you are not alone in your frustration with living in a not-quite so democratic place as you hoped.

But his message, while clear about the serious situation we are in, is not one devoid of hope. Indeed, as I heard him say in a personal appearance in Boston in August, he is not pessimistic at all. Whether it be the local movements springing up to stop Wal Mart, the cities and towns that have ordered their police not to enforce the Patriot Act or to cooperate in the racial profiling of Arab-Americans, across this country are resistance movements. Hightower believes there are more of these than people know and that people are slowly finding out about each other and the impetus for reform will grow.

"It's stupid to keep calling Bush stupid. True, he doesn't have the brain muscle for any heavy lifting, but he knows that that's not his role. He is the affable face of the kleptocracy, and he always has been.... If Cheney was president and doing all this it wouldn't be happening, because he's got a face like a man who just foreclosed on another mortgage." Interview, Boston paper, August. (Sorry for the lack of specific citation."

"The essence of democracy ... has steadily and quietly been pilfered by corporate kleptocrats. ... These corporate elites now effectively control the decisions that affect We the People -- everything from public-spending priorities to environmental degradation, wages, to war, what's on the "news" to gets elected." The Hightower Lowdown, newsletter, August 2003, p.1

"What is it with John Ashcroft? There doesn't seem to be any of our liberties that this maniacal, messianic autocrat will not gleefully assault. ... Ashcroft seems to hate America's liberties. ... This is the guy who rammed through the decidedly unpatriotic "USA Patriot Act" just days after September 11th, erasing essential elements of our First and Fourth Amendments. This is the guy who decreed that the FBI can resume spying on our churches and political groups. ... This is the guy who has ordered prosecutors to seek executions in every case where the death penalty is available, even when local authorities don't think its warranted." Commentary, October 13 http://www.jimhightower.com/

The ABC Radio network has canceled Jim Hightower's weekend radio talk show, effective immediately, according to Hightower Radio. .. As Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon wrote in their Media Beat column the week of September 21, Hightower had built a following on 150 stations during the past 16 months but was hobbled by a lack of marketing from the ABC network and undermined by right-wing management at ABC mega-stations in New York and Los Angeles.

"Listeners like the Hightower show," respected radio consultant Jon Sinton, who helped launch the program, was quoted in the column. "But it makes big companies nervous." (News article)