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The Lowdown is on the move

Word of the Day: Change. Whether used as a verb or a noun, it's one of the most powerful and versatile words in our language, capable of stirring a wide range of emotions, from dread ... to hope. You don't want to hear your corporate boss tell you: "We're going to make a change." On the other hand, you can move forward joyously in the implicit promise of Mavis Staples' uplifting anthem "Change": "Say it loud, say it clear/We gotta change around here." Read more...

When local papers die, the ghouls rush in

Sure enough, opportunists have rushed into America's local news void, sowing thousands of poisonous "imposter" news sites that churn out lies and partisan hackery in the guise of legitimate reporting. Read more...

A few choice words for the Democrats

It’s not the people who’ve “gone conservative,” it’s the Democratic establishment. Too many progressive organizations, especially larger Washington-based groups, have been too willing for too long to follow what in essence is the party’s business-as-usual corporate hierarchy. Read more...

Abbott, DeSantis & the Extremely Extreme GOP

Most intolerable is the steady drip-drip-drip of power it drains from America's democratic ideals and commitment to the Common Good. I can't say that Abbott and DeSantis are the worst that the GOP will try to put in the White House in 2024, but either one is a signpost of an increasingly assertive American fascism. Read more...

How the right wing captured the Supreme Court

Today’s six-member GOP majority has surrendered all claim to being an impartial force for justice. Instead, the GOP’s network of corporate and right-wing operatives has fabricated and weaponized the court to increase their power over the rest of us. Read more...

Give nature a seat at the governing table

The demand that nature have a seat at society's governing table sparks panic in corporate boardrooms. But this concept is centuries old and widely practiced among some of the most experienced environmental stewards in our country: Indigenous Americans. Read more...

It's an endangered species: Save Kar-toon-us A-mer-i-kan-us!

Because cartooning is an expression of the human spirit that has been irrepressible since cave drawings, generation after generation of pen-and-ink champions of democracy have blossomed. Moreover, the general public's appreciation and demand for the cartoonist's sharp-pointed honesty and satire have never flagged, even increasing whenever the artists come under public assault by autocrats, plutocrats, theocrats, cultists, racists, demagogs, screwballs, and assorted other censors. Read more...

It’s time for dinner democracy!

Should the future of America's ag economy be controlled by industrializers and monopolizers who view food strictly as a profit center to be manipulated by and for the few? Or, should the future be modeled on the principles of grassroots producers, artisans, chefs, and consumers who understand that food is an essential element of life, community, and culture to be shared for the Common Good? Read more...

Let’s tackle monopoly power

Rather than a game of chance dependent on a roll of the dice, today's corporate monopolies are products of carefully plotted and executed power plays. Theirs is a game for the biggest, richest, most avaricious plunderers. Just to be a player now requires investing millions of dollars in campaign donations, lobbying firms, lawyer fees, etc. Why? Because Americans hate--hate, hate, HATE--monopolies. Read more...

We’re humans, not corporate cogs

When looking for a sign of the times, sometimes it might literally be on a sign. That was true in Lincoln, NE, on July 9, when the tall billboard in front of a Burger King boldly informed customers: "We all quit. Sorry for the inconvenience." The impetus for the workers' mass public resignation was the "We're not gonna take it anymore" rebellion that is sweeping across workaday America and fueling a rejuvenation of unionization. Read more...

Exxon tries to BUST a union

Today's Exxon executives have ambushed Golden Triangle unions. In a little-reported maneuver, they launched a crude attack this spring on the Steelworkers, attempting to bust the union, disempower the middle-class workforce, and entrench corporate autocracy in the oil industry. What's occurring in Beaumont is not a union strike, but a corporate lockout. Read more...

Will Congress finally fund quality, affordable child care?

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance," the old bumper sticker says: Yet for decades national and state lawmakers have flaunted their ignorance of what makes a good society by stupidly shortchanging our investment in our youngest minds. At the same time, corporate and governmental policymakers have intentionally rigged our economic and political systems to hold down workers' incomes even while their living expenses rise. The result is that mothers and fathers alike are herded into whatever jobs or jobettes are available--just to make ends meet. This leaves young children to ... what? Read more...

How we can save local news

Community life cannot thrive without community news, which in turn depends on reporters and editors who are of the community and have the know-how, time, and resources to investigate, educate, expose, inform, entertain, and generally enlighten the citizenry. Read more...

Incompetents, idealogues, and Wall Street: Hogs are fouling our water

How embarrassing is it that the techno-advanced, engineering powerhouse of America has a growing crisis of water quality and delivery usually associated with impoverished nations? From our biggest cities like New York to isolated rural communities like those in the sprawling Navajo Nation, millions of us endure raw sewage, industrial chemicals, lead pipes, burst water mains, price gouging, cut-offs, boil emergencies, and other water disasters. Read more...

State of the Plate 2021: High tech–or the human spirit?

Like practically everything else in 2020, practically everything in the wide domain of Food & Farm has been twisted, transformed, and otherwise thumped by the twin tornados of Covid-19 and Trump-45. And yet, even while those scourges loaded so much awfulness onto our plates, the progressive human spirit surged into the mess and ... well, we made progress: We created some beautiful moments and generated a stronger-than-ever grassroots push behind fundamental policy change-- change that is sorely needed to elevate the people's interests over the avaricious practices of profiteering agribusiness giants. Read more...

Let’s push for a political deep cleaning

The American struggle to make real the promise of our democratic ideals-- the creation of a society based on the egalitarian values of economic fairness, social justice, and equal opportunity for all--is not a one-year, one-president job. Removing Trump's narcissistic, plutocratic, autocratic regime is not the achievement of our progressive goals, but the opportunity to come out of our four-year defensive crouch and go on the offensive again. We can't time off, because history is calling on progressives to move quickly and forcefully--a la 1932--"to restore America to its own people," as FDR rightly expressed the overarching challenge. Read more...

Push hard and fast. Don’t settle. Demand big change.

Progressives can't settle for just sweeping out, disinfecting, and patching up our national house after Trump's four-year plunderfest. We must demand a fundamental, comprehensive, structural rebuild including policies for healthcare, immigration, environment, racial justice, labor law, and infrastructure. And there's at least one more area that must become a priority for a major policy overhaul--an area of huge moral, cultural, and economic significance that the Democratic Party and most progressives have ignored for decades, to the detriment of millions of people and our own political strength--RURAL AMERICA AND FARMERS. Read more...

Timeless truths for trying times

Although there are obvious exceptions to the rule, decades of behavioral studies, recurring surveys, in-depth conversations, cultural histories, real-life experiences, and every other kind of group observation have by and large produced the same finding: The great majority of people are guided in their daily actions and relations by deep values of fairness and sharing. Read more...

What progressives won this year

A jittery week at the polls, huh? One measure of our political anxiety is that liquor sales spiked this week....

I’m making moves!

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve started a Substack newsletter for all of our content. You’ll still find our older, archived materials here at hightowerlowdown.org, but the latest (and greatest?) observations from Jim Hightower are only now available at our new Substack website.

Check out jimhightower.substack.com »