Author Jim Hightower

Big biz wants to own the information superhighway while We the People bump along the backroads

July 2010

In the 1970s, Lily Tomlin developed an iconic comic character she named Ernestine–a telephone clerk who took perverse pleasure from hectoring...

To put the progress back in “progressive,” we need a real populist movement

June 2010

If a political pollster came to my door and asked whether I consider myself a conservative or a liberal, I’d...

Facts–not myths–about our economy

May 2010

The Dow Jones Average is above 11,000!Corporate profits are up! Wall Street has paid back its bailout money! Executive pay...

300 ex-Congress critters are among the hired guns who kill progressive reforms

April 2010

Change. That’s what Americans want. We the People–a.k.a. the body politic, the majority, the great unwashed, the hoi polloi, “us”–have made...

Full text of Justice John Paul Stevens

March 2010

Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Ginsburg , Justice Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor join, concurring in part and dissenting in part....

Giving corporations more power to buy politicians of their choice

March 2010

“For too long,” wailed the senator in a heart-tugging cry for justice, “some in this country have been deprived of full...

Right-wing groups receiving major grants from the Koch Family Foundations

February 2010

Right-wing groups receiving major grants from the Koch Family Foundations (Charles Koch, David Koch, and Claude Lambe Foundations) Amounts granted...

The Thinkers

February 2010

To put an intellectual gloss on their hard-core antigovernment beliefs, the Kochs founded and funded their own think tank: the...

How corporate money took over Washington–and created the mobs who rant against reform

February 2010

Despite a constant racket from the forces of the far-out right (Fox television’s yackety-yackers, just-say-no GOP know-nothings, tea-bag howlers, Sarah Palinistas,...

ACORN’s real “crime” is that it empowers the poor

January 2010

The name Felix Walker is not one you would recognize, but this 19th-century congressman inadvertently contributed a word to America’s political...

These folks aren’t waiting for change, they’re making it happen EMAIL TO A FRIEND PRINT THIS! DISCUSS THIS

December 2009

Having just graduated from the University of North Texas in June 1965, I headed east to Washington, D.C., for a few...

The “Drug War” is doing far more harm than marijuana itself ever will

November 2009

You might remember Robert McNamara’s stunning mea culpa, delivered a quarter century after his Vietnam War policies sent some 50,000...

The four biggest reasons for escalating war in Afghanistan–and why they’re bogus

October 2009

Ambassador Richard Holbrooke is America’s “Man in the Stans”–Afghanistan and Pakistan, that is. Handpicked by President Obama to be special representative...

Corporate personhood

September 2009

The fanciful notion that a corporation is a “person” and is thus imbued with fundamental constitutional rights stems from–get this–a mistake....

Supreme Court considers vast increase in the political power of corporations

September 2009

At his 2005 hearing to be confirmed as chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts had to convince some skeptical...

Renewable energy can green America’s environment, economy, and democracy

August 2009

The Bible tells us that on the sixth day, God created man, allowing him to live in the lush Garden...

Obama’s reform plan is to “watch” Wall Street rather than restructure it

July 2009

Out in West Texas, an oxymoronic weather phenomenon known as a “dry rainstorm” often occurs. It’s particularly tough on farmers....

We’ll reform! We promise!

June 2009

In a show of their selfless commitment to reform, a gaggle of health-industry lobbyists trotted out with President Obama last...

Everyone hates corporate healthcare– now, public demand could really change it

June 2009

Now is the time for boldness! Instead, we’re getting Baucusness. Sen. Max Baucus, that is–Montana Democrat, chair of the Senate Finance Committee,...

Populism is not a style, it’s a people’s rebellion against corporate power

May 2009

When I lived in Washington, DC, in the 1970s, I got a call from a friend of mine who worked...

Name those greedheads!

April 2009

Last month, I asked my radio listeners to come up with new words to describe the abominable sense of self-entitlement...

Q: What made Wall Street implode? A: They were making too much money to stop

April 2009

Did you have a piggy bank when you were a child? Mine was a cheery, round pig–made of brown pottery, as...

Time for real workplace democracy– not the phony company version

March 2009

Last October, Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus blew a gasket, spewing outrage in all directions. “This is the demise of civilization,”...

The Lowdown is 10!

March 2009

Hightower and I launched the Lowdown in March 1999 with an issue about how the World Trade Organization was forcing multinational corporations’ version of...

The CIA’S uprising in Afghanistan

February 2009

You’ve gotta love the CIA for trying. It’ll give anything a shot–including a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro with an exploding...