Jim Hightower is one of the reasons I love Texas politics. Even farther to the left than I am (but not by much), Hightower seems to relish the challenge of spitting into the wind. Let's face it, being a liberal Democrat in Texas means that we're part of a pronounced minority. To Hightower, though, that fact only increases the challenge.
Equal parts Will Rogers, Franklin Roosevelt and P.T. Barnum, Hightower is the card-carrying comedian of farmer-labor bedrock progressivism. As commentator, columnist and public speaker, he's mad -- and funny -- as hell, battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought to Be: consumers, environmentalists, small-business owners, family farmers.
Politically, he's so far to the left that he shares with certain rightists an outsider's moral outrage. Big Government, Big Business: both run amok. The true political spectrum, Hightower says, is top to bottom, and the vast majority are below shouting range of Washington and Wall Street.
Not that he's building a consensus. No progressive movement has ever done that, he says. Take the American Revolution.
"Only a third of the colonists were actually for a revolution. There were more people for King George than there were for George Washington."....
Despite that, despite Hightower's raging about CEO stock options long before Enron and WorldCom-dot-fraud, his issues rarely get an airing in mainstream media, which he criticizes for abdicating investigative journalism. And though he's a lifelong Democrat, he's been marginalized by his own party.
So he's forging activist coalitions at the grass-roots level, concentrating on local issues while putting the "party back in politics" and politics back into the cultural fabric. Here he is in Tucson, Ariz., Bass ale in hand, gleam in his glasses, twitch in the 'stache, delivering the word:
"Democracy requires people willing to get together, willing to sign up, to get steamed up a little bit. And don't forget the beer. I think it's always essential to lubricate democracy." ....
Hightower could tell a story by holding up a box of Wheaties. Decades later, he still remembers the words. "There's less than 2 cents' worth of wheat in here," he'd say. "Nutritionists say if you chopped up the box and poured milk and sugar on it, it'd be better than if you actually ate the Wheaties. General Mills and four other companies control 90 percent of the market. That's why your cereal costs so much. (And) the farmworker gets nothing."
But no cause stirred him quite like the 1976 presidential try by populist U.S. Sen. Fred Harris of Oklahoma. Harris was the best political speaker Hightower had ever heard and a "giant" in Congress, when "senators had some balls and were willing to stand up and fight."
Hightower became Harris' campaign director. "Did a terrific job," says Harris, now a political science professor at the University of New Mexico.
"I would say energy, enthusiasm, sense of humor, commitment -- that's Jim Hightower. Those four qualities that make up a good person, he's got them in greater quantities than virtually anybody I know.
"He's a really good and loyal friend, and he's tough as a badger."
From there, Hightower has travelled a road dedicated to promoting Progressive politics, a particularly tough road to hoe in Texas, where Progressives are often described in the same breath as "Communists".
I've always admired Hightower's views and his ability to articulate them. His politics may be "out there" to some, but I find a good deal of common sense in what he has to say. Perhaps the reason so few Democrats and Republicans want to hear what he has to say is that he hits so close to home.
Not only are Hightower's politics an admirable mix of Progressive and practical, he is also one of the funniest political figures (yes, I realize that is normally an oxymoron) you'll ever set your ears on. Whether or not you agree with Hightower, the man can weave a story like few others.
(thanks to Chuck Kuffner)
