Jim Hightower's Lowdown
457 episodes - English - Latest episode: 1 day ago - ★★★★★ - 303 ratingsNews and shows about the progressive, democratic populist rebellion from former Texas Ag Commissioner and NYT best-selling author Jim Hightower.
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Episodes
Breaking News: New Life for Local Newspapers
August 10, 2023 16:01Listen now (2 mins) | How about a little bit of good news for a change? Specifically, good news about news. The demise of local newspapers has been a very depressing story in the last few years, with several thousand of them gobbled up by Wall Street profiteers. Those money powers loot the publications’ assets, then callously shut down each community’s paper, or reduces them to empty news shells. So that’s that – local print journalism is passé, right?
Prairie Radicals: Populism, Agitating, Organizing, Texas Farmers, a Scary-Looking Marine, Terrible Tomatoes, Free Markets, Bad Actors, Good Hardware Stores—and Much More
August 09, 2023 18:18 image/jpegWatch now (36 mins) | Hightower's talk from the Witliff Collections' celebration of populism
It’s HOT… and Joe Biden Has a Website for That!
August 08, 2023 16:00Listen now (2 mins) | Weather forecasters across the Southwest are having a hard time this summer coming up with descriptive taglines for each day’s ever-rising heat. If 105° is “hot”—what to call 110°… and up? Some have quit trying, simply labeling each day: “Again.”
Friday Open Thread: Quackery Quotas with Jen Sorensen
August 04, 2023 16:01 image/jpegWelcome to our Friday open thread for August! If you’re wondering what an open thread is, check out this post from July for all the info. Our premium subscribers get full access to all of our work, and the ability to comment on all posts, so let’s get together in the comments and chat! (Not sure how to post comments?
Texas, What the Hell? A Murderous Governor
August 03, 2023 16:00Listen now (2 mins) | Little-known fact: A leading cause of death in Texas is Gov. Greg Abbott. Yes, by intentional actions and deliberate inactions, Abbott has used his gubernatorial policies to kill thousands of Texans, including: his calculated refusal to extend Medicaid to millions of poor Texans (including nearly a million children)… his intentional denial of water breaks for outdoor workers broiling under this year’s 100-plus-degree heat dome… his lethal deregulation of utilities causin...
Hightower’s Heroes in History: Smedley Darlington Butler
August 02, 2023 16:00 image/jpegGather ‘round, students, for this week’s history lesson. This week we look at one true American hero, who single-handedly saved our country from a fascist takeover in 1933. That alone should make this hero a household name—and what a name he has.
Would Someone Please Wake Up Sen. Tom Cotton?
August 01, 2023 16:01Listen now (2 mins) | Sen. Tom Cotton, a far-out, right-winger, is to good public policy what a boll weevil is to a good cotton crop: totally destructive. But he is politically candid – rather than disguising his racial bigotry, for example, Tom flaunts it, as he did last month in an open letter to the retail giant, Target. While the senator is usually a devoted corporate-hugging Republican, he lashed out at Target for business policies that he furiously condemns as racially discriminatory…
Friday Signpost: Why the Hollywood Fight Is All of Our Fights
July 28, 2023 16:01 image/jpegWriters in the entertainment industries have been on strike since May 2nd, and then this month, the actors have joined them. Hollywood seems like one of those glamorous industries rolling in cash, far removed from the reality of everyday life in America. But, that’s not the whole picture, and these strikes have revealed some ugly truths about worker exploitation, and how this fight is about much more than pay rates-- it’s about the future of work for us all.
A “New” Political Party That’s the Same Old Business-As-Usual
July 27, 2023 16:00Listen now (2 mins) | As John Mellencamp sings: “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” True. And here’s and equally true twist on that aphorism: “If you stand for everything, you won’t amount to anything.”
Behind the scenes: How Hightower works
July 26, 2023 16:00 image/jpegThe old saying goes that no one wants to see how the sausage gets made. But, that’s the kind of stuff that Hightower and the rest of us here love to learn about! So, we thought you’d enjoy a peek behind the curtains and see how Hightower’s work gets from his brain to your eyeballs and eardrums.
How the System Works: Joe Manchin’s Pipe Dream
July 25, 2023 16:01Listen now (2 min) | Rube Goldberg would marvel at Sen. Joe Manchin’s wacky, convoluted machinations to rig the system so fossil fuel polluters can run roughshod over nature, local people, and democracy. Goldberg was a master of satirical cartoons, drawing hilarious schematics of convoluted contraptions to do silly tasks. His “Self-Operating Napkin,” for example, involved a spoon, cracker, toucan, skyrocket, sickle, and a pendulum attached to a napkin – all operating sequentially to automatic...
Local activism, book recommendations, animal rights and more: Friday open thread responses
July 21, 2023 16:01 image/jpegOur first Friday Open Thread yielded such a cornucopia of comments and recommendations, it’s taken us a couple weeks to read through them all. Here are a few that stood out to me.
Why You Can’t Believe a Word Anti-Abortion Politicos Say
July 20, 2023 16:01Listen now (2 min) | Unfortunately, it’s 1984 again in America. Not the year. The book. George Orwell’s classic novel tells of a far-right totalitarian clique that uses “newspeak” and “doublethink” to impose their rigid, anti-democratic doctrine on society. Their regime held power through mind control – they had T a “Ministry of Truth” for perverting language and manipulating facts, while their “Thought Police” enforced ideological purity and suppressed dissent.
What I’m Cooking Now: Real Corn Dogs!
July 19, 2023 16:01 image/jpegYes, the 4th of July has passed, but beaucoup summer picnics lie ahead, so here are the makings of a classic State Fair staple: The American Corn Dog! This is the original. Way before Hebrew National franks and the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile came into play, Mesoamericans pioneered
What If George Washington or Sam Adams Ran for President?
July 18, 2023 16:00Listen now (2 mins) | All those firecrackers on July 4 got me thinking about the headline revolutionaries who signed the 1776 Declaration, fought the Brits for independence, hammered out the Constitution and installed our Bill of Rights. Old Ben, Monticello Tom, General George, Alex, “Pamphleteer Tommy” Paine, Jimmie and Dolly, Tea Party Sam, and others got America’s democratic experiment started, and they’re rightly saluted today, from school rooms to political gatherings of both major parti...
FRIDAY SIGNPOST: Grassroots Groups We Love: GROWW
July 14, 2023 15:55 image/jpegBuilding power in rural Western Wisconsin
The Supreme Court: A Nest of Clueless Overprivileged Elites
July 13, 2023 16:00Listen now (2 min) | Here’s an embarrassing turn of events: The six right-wing ideologues now controlling the Supreme Court recently decreed that helping some students get into college through affirmative action programs is henceforth unconstitutional.
Extending the Jesse Jackson Legacy
July 12, 2023 16:01 image/jpegWatch now (2 mins) | It’s been 35 years since Jesse Jackson’s landmark presidential campaign, and an important gathering of progressives is taking place in Chicago this weekend. In tribute to Jesse Jackson, in celebration of progressive advocacy—and as a call to re-energize Jackson’s democratic model of leadership. The Jackson family will be there, Bernie Sanders, too—and you can be there, via a Word Network cable broadcast and internet streaming.
Texas: What the Hell? Stay Hydrated, They Say. Unless You’re a Construction Worker
July 11, 2023 16:01Listen now (2 mins) | About 150 years ago, Gen. Philip Sheridan was sweltering in the relentless heat of a Texas summer. He was not happy: “If I owned Texas and all Hell,” he groused, “I would rent out Texas and live in Hell.”
Friday Open Thread: What are you reading, listening to, or otherwise paying attention to?
July 07, 2023 15:42 image/jpegHappy Friday, y’all! Today we’re launching a new regular feature for our premium subscribers: the Friday Open Thread. If you’ve never heard of an “open thread” before, it’s a term from the early days of blogging, where writers would ask their communities to share what’s on their minds (as related to the topic of the blog, at least, heh). Hightower is always looking for stories—especially stories of strong grassroots success!—that might not be on his radar, and we want you to help shape the wo...
Grassroots Action Is Shoving States Into Action on Child Care
July 06, 2023 16:01Listen now (2 min) | Two pieces of good advice: (1) “Never sign nothin’ by neon,” and (2) “Never negotiate with snakes.” But Joe Biden violated both rules this year, getting out-negotiated by Senate Republicans (and their tag-along Democrat, Joe Manchin). As a result, Biden completely surrendered an urgently-needed program for America: Universal child care.
Political Perverts: Pro-Lifers Who’re Anti-Child Care
July 05, 2023 16:01Listen now (2 min) | The political extremists demanding that government control every woman’s personal reproductive decisions claim that they are “pro-life.” But that’s a rhetorical fraud. Look at their overall policy agenda and you’ll see that they are merely
Which Willie Nelson 4th of July Picnic Was Dedicated to Farm Aid?
June 30, 2023 16:04 image/jpegA quick bite of Texas history for your holiday weekend
The Most Influential Musician You Never Heard Of
June 29, 2023 16:58Listen now (2 min) | When you think of Americans whose music has made a lasting difference, you might think of Scott Joplin, Woody Guthrie, Maybelle Carter, Harry Belafonte… or Roger Payne. Who? I came across Payne in a June obituary, reporting that he’d died at age 88 (yes, I occasionally scan the obits, not out of morbid curiosity, but because these little death notices encompass our people’s history, reconnecting us to common lives that had some small or surprisingly large impact).
Profiles in Pusillanimousity: The US Senate’s Silicon Valley Hillbilly
June 28, 2023 16:01 image/jpegSen. J.D. Vance of Ohio is a “Hillbilly Hero.” We know this, because the Republican lawmaker keeps telling us it’s so, regularly bragging that he rose from hardscrabble rural Appalachia to become the political “voice of the Rust Belt,” the champion of America’s working class.
The Secret History of “Wokeness”
June 27, 2023 16:00Listen now (2 min) | In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Humpty Dumpty scornfully declares that, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean.” So what does “woke” mean? It’s become the pet political aspersion that today’s kooky right-wing hucksters hurl at liberals, but the hurlers would be whopperjawed to learn that it’s was actually coined by and for
Do You Suspect the System Is Rigged? Here’s Proof
June 22, 2023 15:46Listen now (2 min) | Years ago, a Texas lawmaker got caught using his official position to enrich himself by taking money from special interests, in exchange for voting their way. The culprit did not deem this as corrupt, but just the normal ethic of an enterprising business transaction: “I seen my chances,” he explained, “and I took ‘em.”
The Motown Supremes, Chicken Supreme… But the "Supreme" Court?
June 21, 2023 16:01Listen now (2 min) | The six-person majority of far-right “Supremes” who presently dominate America’s judicial system seems intent on demonstrating that having a seat on our Supreme Court does not mean there is anything Supreme about them.
True “Wokeism” Is a Core American Value – Stand Up for It!
June 15, 2023 16:30Listen now (2 min) | As Scottish literary giant Robert Burns wrote, “The best-laid schemes of mice and men/Go oft awry.” His 1785 poem, titled “To A Mouse,” could be directed today at the right-wing sloganeers who’ve been scheming so furiously to turn their hokey “woke” snobbery into a winning political stratagem. “Your local librarian is woke!” they screech. “So is Disney, Inc.! Some of your churches, too, plus all Democrats, and – OMG – even Bud Light!!!” Creeping Wokeism is the new Red Sca...
🥞 SHORT STACK: Who the Hell is Mike Reed?
June 13, 2023 15:38Listen now (2 min) | Behind the curtain of the Gannett CEO
The Unreported News About Your “Newspaper”
June 12, 2023 22:18Listen now (2 min) | Gannett is squashing news on labor organizing
How It’s Done: Setting Low the Ethical Bar in Politics
June 08, 2023 16:00Listen now (2 min) | The beauty of impeaching a public official is that it recalibrates the standard for political morality, letting other politicos gauge just how low they can go. Consider two recent Texas examples. First came Rep. Bryan Slaton, a howling right-wing culture warrior who specialized in demonizing LGBTQ people as “perverted.” But the 45-year-old Republican – a former Southern Baptist youth pastor who was elected on a “family values” platform – got caught getting a 19-year-old i...
Biden, the GOP and You: Who Won the Debt-Ceiling Fight?
June 06, 2023 16:01Listen now (2 min) | During the big Washington showdown over the government’s debt ceiling, it looked possible for a brief moment that Joe Biden might bully GOP leader Kevin McCarthy into hurting one of America’s most vulnerable minorities: The überrich.
🥞SHORT STACK: Some good reading: Wendell Berry
June 05, 2023 16:05 image/jpegWendell Berry is a national treasure. Indeed, I would propose that he be declared one of America’s Most Precious Natural Resources – but we’ve seen how profiteering corporations and their politicians strip-mine, clearcut, frack, extract, and carelessly contaminate these precious treasures, so I wouldn’t want to endanger him.
What Pan Would You Take To A Public Protest?
June 01, 2023 16:00Listen now (2 min) | Do mass protests matter anymore? Even when large numbers turn out with a high level of outrage directed at abusive corporate or governmental elites, the Powers That Be usually just hunker down and wait for the fury to pass.
A Labor Strike in Hollywood? Why Should You Care?
May 31, 2023 15:22Listen now (2 min) | The so-called "gig economy" is coming for workers everywhere
Two Joe Bros Versus the People of Appalachia
May 25, 2023 16:39Listen now (2 min) | If poohbahs of the national Democratic Party wonder why working-class families, which once formed the party’s solid base of political support, have gone astray – they might ponder the awful message they’re sending by constantly smooching Sen. Joe Manchin’s flabby tail.
Texas: What the Hell? Thou Shalt Honor Thy First Amendment
May 24, 2023 16:26 image/jpeg5/25/2003 — Update below. Once again, the Texas Legislature leads by example! Erroneous and wrongheaded example, but, Bless Their Little Hearts, they’re just not real good at thinking complicated things through.
Pigs Win a Big One Over Corporate Hoggishness
May 23, 2023 15:01Listen now (2 min) | It’s an odd marketing strategy for an industry to assail its own consumers. Yet, that’s what the monopolistic meatpacking industry (led by such huge conglomerates as Tyson, Smithfield, JBS, and Hormel that control nearly 70 percent of America’s pork market) is doing. “Just shut up and eat your bacon,” the industry shrieks! The target of their corporate tantrum is the growing grassroots movement of consumers, animal rights advocates, farmers, chefs, retailers, and others w...
Checking the Price You Pay for Corporate Food
May 18, 2023 15:01Listen now (2 min) | Oftentimes, when you suspect you’re being gouged by corporate price fixers – you are. Take the rat-a-tat-tat of today’s price jumps at supermarkets and chain restaurants. They make you want to race to the cash register before they raise prices again!
What? Progress in Mississippi? Seriously?
May 16, 2023 15:01Listen now (2 min) | There’s a common political refrain among Texas Progressives: “Thank God for Mississippi.” Our own state government, run by corporate lobbyists and right-wing nutballs, is a notorious hellhole for efforts to provide even a little more fairness for the poor, the working class, and the environment. So, Lone Star progressives need some straw to grasp to keep from tumbling into the ditch of total despair. Mississippi has been that straw – no matter how mingy our state official...
How Perverse is the GOP’s Book Banning Crusade?
May 11, 2023 14:01Listen now (2 min) | Tiptoeing around the democratic process, Indiana’s Republican legislature has become the latest of that ilk to slap its local school librarians with an idiotic book ban. Snuck into law behind closed doors, the partisan Hoosier law requires librarians to pull books that the learned lawmakers consider “harmful to minors.” Just to juice up the ignorance and arrogance of their ban, the law
Chicken Little Attacks America’s Teachers
May 09, 2023 14:01Listen now (2 min) | Is this how we celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week?
The Old Hat That Rules Britannia
May 08, 2023 21:33 image/jpegWeekend musings and grocery store antics from Hightower
A Republican Death Star is Targeting Your Liberty
May 04, 2023 14:43Listen now (2 min) | While the Powers That Be constantly warn us about foreign threats to our democracy from Russian trolls, TikTok, etc. – there is scant coverage of an actual assault on our people’s democratic liberties by forces on our own soil.
Let’s Admit It: The Supreme Court is Corrupt. Let’s Fix It.
May 03, 2023 15:11Listen now (2 min) | When public officials get themselves mired in the muck of corruption, they can always count on Sen. Ted Cruz to issue a moral judgement: If the offender is a Democrat, he pronounces the corruption inexcusably grotesque; if it’s a Republican, he wails that the offender is the victim.
Here’s Something Good About Texas!
April 27, 2023 11:01Listen now (2 min) | Given the rabid rightwingism of most Republican officeholders in my state of Texas, you might assume that the climate here is only fit for rattlesnakes, scorpions, and venomous critters of pious political extremism.
Steve Rattner Explains Your Life’s Purpose For You
April 25, 2023 16:00Listen now (2 min) | Do you find it as charming as I do when some leisure-class corporate chieftain whines that America’s working stiffs are a bunch of slackers? We’re hearing that now from Wall Street plutocrats, grumping that employees no longer have that old nose-to-the-grindstone, “yes-boss” work ethic of old-school capitalism that has created such fabulous wealth. Of course, “wealth for whom” and “work for what?” are at the root of today’s questioning of the old culture and structure of ...
Chat & Chew! Beyond Book Banning: the Movement to Control America
April 24, 2023 21:26You’ve probably heard the news out of Texas, Missouri, Michigan, Idaho and more— sudden and inexplicable protests against books and demands that they be removed from libraries. And you’ve also probably noticed that the books getting banned seem to have things in common with one another, like the prominence of LGBTQ+ characters, or themes that explore racial justice—or the lack thereof—in America. Could this seemingly “spontaneous” movement represent something more?
How Many Words Does It Take to Say “Class War”?
April 20, 2023 11:01Listen now (2 min) | These days, America’s top economic officials tend to speak in unintelligible bureaucratic gobbledygook. But, once upon a time, there was a plainspoken White House economist, and he even had a sense of humor. He didn’t last.