Jim Hightower's Radio Lowdown

America’s family farmers were astonished last year to get a jolly tweet from the President of the United States: “Have fun!” exclaimed The Donald.Fun? The farm economy is in the ditch, with crop prices at depression levels and bankruptcies surging. Plus, Trump Inc. has been rigging the law to give agribusiness monopolies more power to run roughshod over farmers and rural communities.Well, yes, say the billionaire “geniuses” and partisan hacks who’ve seized control of farm and food policies, but our phantasmagoric laissez-fairyland ideology will open up new agricultural markets here at home, so see? Fun!Those ideologues, however, can’t make chicken salad out of chicken manure, and that’s what their promises are. While Brooke Rollins, Trump’s corporatized ag secretary, babbles about “new” markets—but she actually shut down a nationwide market last year that provided a billion dollars a year to family farmers who produce for local schools, food pantries, etc. In reality, Rollins’ goal is an industrialized, globalized food economy, so she coldly dismissed these local sales as “nonessential.” Of course, that says to all of the people involved that her government considers them nonessential.Combining arrogance with ignorance, Trump’s aloof plutocrats carelessly wiped out this market right at spring planting time! Each farm family had already taken out thousands of dollars in bank loans to buy seeds and other essential supplies to make this year’s crop, but—WHAMMO!—Trump & Co. slammed the door on the family’s most reliable market, shoving them to the brink of broke… and beyond.This is what happens when clueless billionaires are brought in to make our public programs “efficient.” Corporate rule is never efficient—and it sure ain’t fun.Do something!* Our friends at Farm Action “expose monopoly power through research, investigations, and public education to protect farmers and our food.” Right up our alley! farmaction.us* The National Farmers Union does a ton of great federal advocacy, and each of their state chapters is even more badass. nfu.orgJim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

Over my years as a political agitator, a special joy has been getting to know and learn from so many other practitioners of the agitating arts who dare to stand up to moneyed elites.Yes, if you push for a little more fairness and democracy in our “Land of the Free” you will certainly be labeled an agitator. But so what? Wear that proudly, for mavericks and agitators are the ones who’ve advanced America’s democratic possibilities. As Jesse Jackson put it, “the agitator is the center-post in the washing machine that gets the dirt out.”Indeed, it’s those everyday people who do the hard travelling and heavy lifting to produce grassroots change. For an exemplary model, consider the life of Dolores Huerta. This jewel of a human being died last week after 96 years in the field, inspiring, organizing, and mobilizing supposedly powerless, mostly-impoverished people.I got to know and occasionally work in her shadow as she crisscrossed the country again and again, organizing farmworkers, immigrants, women, outcasts, and others who’ve been knocked down, held back, and routinely-abused by a morally-corrupt power structure. Astonishingly, despite political disappointments, repeated arrests, brutal beatings by corporate thugs, and devastating personal abuse – she never lost her deep belief that an organized, focused, people’s movement will prevail. Si se puede was her inspiring mantra: “Yes we can do it!”She was a momentous labor leader and progressive icon, but for me she remains a touchstone for those seeking a life of grassroots agitation. You don’t need to become Dolores Huerta, but see if you can find her spirit inside you.Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

Inequality in America doesn’t just “happen” – it’s deliberately created by the self-serving actions of corporate powers and political autocrats.You might have noticed, for example that your health care costs keep rocketing into the stratosphere. This has left millions of our families with no medical coverage at all, and most of the rest of us are struggling to pay ever-higher prices to insurance giants for ever-worsening coverage.Lately, even those whose employers provide health insurance, are being socked by their companies’ top executives – who, by the way, get platinum-level medical coverage paid by the company. Steadily and stealthily, though, the bosses have been making rank-and-file workers pay for health benefits, which are considered part of the pay they earn. This pick-pocketing was modest at first, but it’s now major thievery, taking an average of $7,500 a year from each employee’s paycheck.Well, bark corporate apologists, that’s just the natural working of the free market system. Excuse me, but my family’s health is not a market, and there’s nothing “natural” about inequality being foisted on working families by corporate elites.Speaking of unnatural, take a look at Mark Zuckerberg, the wonky-zonky gabillionaire chief of Meta, Inc. An infamous profiteer at the expense of communities and workers, Mark has become so royally rich that he would owe billions in a proposed California wealth tax. No problem though – elites at the top take care of themselves, so Zuck just had Meta rig its entire stock structure so his new tax obligation would cost him zero!So billionaire bosses keep pampering themselves by rigging their own corporate rules while robbing their employees’ paychecks. And that, boys and girls, is how the widening inequality gap between the rich and rest of us happens.Do something!* Over at Inequality.org, they cover the multitude of issues surrounding pay inequality, and have an action center around CEO pay loaded with information.* There are also rich people who believe in paying their fair share, and are actually advocating for it! Check out patrioticmillionaires.org.Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

There’s a hunter’s nightmare in which a group of them flush some rabbits out of the brush. But rather than scampering away, the furry bunnies turn toward their stalkers. “Run,” shouts one of the hunters. “Run for your life – the rabbits have guns!”Arming animals would make the sport of hunting a bit more sporting, wouldn’t it? Well, what if we did give all wildlife a fighting chance against the destructive firepower of profiteers who so carelessly ravage their habitats and kill them off? Of course, we can’t arm nature with guns, but we could recognize that other species and ecosystems are living creatures with intrinsic legal rights to exist and flourish, thus giving nature its day in court to defend its well-being.Like us humans, the lakes, forests, wildlife, etc. could have legal status to sue and be represented by lawyers to protect themselves from mindless exploitation, injury, and death. This Rights-of-Nature concept is already being applied in such countries as Ecuador and New Zealand – and more than three dozen US cities and towns have passed ordinances acknowledging that various natural resources in their areas have inherent rights to take polluters and other despoilers to court.Ironically, the corporate powers – who have perverted law, logic, and nature to have their lifeless, profiteering entities declared “persons” – are aghast that Mother Nature can have rights that can counter the corporate claim that their right to profit is absolute.At its core, the Rights-of-Nature movement is asserting the obvious: Earth’s biosphere is not a free candy store for our taking. We are one with the natural world and must find ways to cooperate fully with it for our own survival. To learn more and connect to action, go to the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund: www.celdf.org.Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

E-I-E-I-O! If Republican agriculture policy was a crop, farmers would plow it under. Why? Because it’s worthless.Worse than worthless, GOP policy: 1) bilks taxpayers to pay billions of dollars a year to bail out the biggest corporate farms; 2) it forces productive family farmers out of business by intentionally eliminating their markets; and 3) it rips-off consumers by letting food conglomerates gouge us with monopolistic price hikes.Consider Trump’s ideological tariff nonsense. It has needlessly shut off multibillion-dollar markets that America’s farmers count on, while simultaneously jacking up the price they must pay for essentials like fertilizer and diesel fuel. The Republican tariff war has crushed farm income, leading the GOP’s once proud “free market” lawmakers racing to rebrand themselves as Big Business Socialists. So far this year, they have handed out $55 billion in crop welfare payments, with trainloads of that going to the biggest agribusiness operators.Of course, Trumpers don’t really care about saving farmers, but saving their own political hides. Notice that while they’re doling out government welfare checks to Big Ag, they’re coldly dismissing the real pain of workaday families who’re being knocked flat by skyrocketing food prices.Meanwhile, Trump himself admits his agbiz giveaways are just partisan politics. Campaigning in Kansas for Roger Marshall, one of his sycophantish congress critters, he promised to enact another subsidy for the region’s corn farmers. BUT ONLY if Kansans re-elect Marshall next week. If the people choose the Democratic contender, Potentate Trump says: “I’m not doing it.”There you have it: Farm vote bribery, another example of the current GOP Kakistocracy – government by the very worst people in society.Do something!If you’re mad as hell about Big Ag’s exploitation of, well, just about everything to do with farming, here are some groups to follow and support:* Kansas Farmer’s Union: Executive Director Nick Levendofsky is one of our favorite people to watch for both political insights and biting commentary. KFU works to protect family farmers, ranchers and their communities through policy, education and activism.* Environmental Working Group maintains a database of farm subsidies and publishes indispensable research on all kinds of farming issues. Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

We’re being told that an earth-shaking, transformative age of “generative artificial intelligence” is already upon us.We’re told not to worry though, just accept it, because an elite clique of über-smart, über-rich tech barons have our backs. These Big Thinking Visionaries, we’re told, are already devising plans to shape humanity’s new future.But wait – who’s telling us all this? Why the barons themselves! Yes, the same self-enriching Silicon Valley hucksters who have unleashed this invasive digital force on our world, now say they are planning to “save humanity.” How? By remaking our economy, laws, social systems, etc. to fit their new AI structure World Order.Excuse me, but have any of those barons asked if you want to go there? I’ve not been consulted by them, have you? When did We The People elect such egomaniacal, anti-social, profiteering billionaires as Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Altman, and Huang to decide humanity’s future? If you want to see their idea of a technocratic social order, visit one of Bezos’ hellish Amazon warehouses that has made him so royally rich. Or ask locals how Elon rampages autocratically over their communities, resources, homes, and rights.No need to imagine what autocracy they might impose over us – just note that the trillion-dollar tech empires they already run routinely assert corporate property rights over all human rights, and how their lobbyists routinely rush to outlaw any public interference with the rapid spread of AI’s economic, environmental, and social greed.These billionaire geniuses don’t want to save us from AI dominance, they’re trying to stampede us into their “kakistocracy.” What’s that? Government by the very worst people in society.Do something!To keep fighting Big Tech, check out the Athena Coalition, an organization of dozens of local and national groups who are “coming together to create an economy where everyone can thrive, safeguard our planet, and protect our democracy.” We can get with that! athenaforall.orgJim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

You probably won’t believe this, boys and girls, but there was a time when government regulatory officials believed it was their public duty to – get this – serve the public!How? By enforcing laws intended to protect consumers, workers, the environment and other targets of raw corporate greed. Today, though, far-right plutocrats behind Trump’s Project 2025 have turned our national protection agencies into private escort services for corporate predators.Consider the monopolistic airline giants that have made price gouging and passenger abuse their normal business practice. It got so bad the Transportation Department finally mandated a handful of minimal reforms a few years ago. How minimal? The rules included such basic stuff as requiring airlines to tell customers the actual price of their ticket up front – no hidden fees. And requiring airlines to compensate customers if corporate mismanagement causes their flight to be disrupted. Also, making airlines liable for damages they do to wheelchairs of disabled passengers.Any honest business would already be doing such things as a matter of personal integrity, but Sean Duffy has now screeches that corporate integrity is none of the public’s business. Who is Duffy? A run-of-the-mill laissez-faire extremist, former Republican Congressman, MTV reality show personality – and former Washington lobbyist for a firm representing the Big Three Airlines!He’s now ensconced as Transportation Secretary in Trump’s cabinet, where he is pushing a sweeping agenda to repeal consumer protections. His agenda reads like a wish list put forth by the airline executives he had lobbied for. If this seems like profiteering corporate elites are making public rules to serve their own selfishness… Bingo! To keep tabs on their corporate thievery, go to TheRevolvingDoorProject.org.Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

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.”This is the Clarence Thomas code-of-ethics. As has been widely reported, this Supreme Court judge (who reliably rules for corporate supremacy over the people’s interests) has secretly been on the take for years from a billionaire corporate right-winger. Real estate tycoon Harlan Crow, an extremist activist for plutocratic government, has been lavishing millions of dollars’ worth of luxury vacations, private jet travel, family housing and educational payments, and other gratuities on Thomas.Yet, this supposedly-supreme lawyer says he detected no whiff of bribery, nor did he see any need to inform us commoners of it. He simply seen his chances and took ’em.But Thomas knew damn well that it was improper, corrupting, and disgusting. After all, during the last three decades, he has consistently voted for court rulings to make such obvious graft legal. For example, he has voted again and again to drain common sense from our anti-corruption laws, declaring that it is legal for a corporation to keep a public official on private retainer, that it’s okay for political officials to sell access to their offices, that the “appearance of corruption” is not corrupt – and, directly relevant to Harlan Crow, Thomas voted that it is technically not bribery to try influencing public officials by bestowing a series of gifts to them over time.If it seems to you like the system is rigged to favor the powerful, there you have it. Thomas is both the rigger and the beneficiary of the system.Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

When corporations try to bamboozle us commoners, they fire three levels of deceit at us. First comes their basic lies… then they escalate to a barrage of damn lies… and finally they resort to their nuclear option: A PR campaign.The high-tech profiteers of artificial intelligence and political enablers are now going nuclear. Grassroots Americans didn’t swallow Silicon Valley’s opening deceit that AI data centers would be a bonanza for local communities. And when the billionaires escalated their land-water-and-power grab by assailing opponents as luddites and political extremists, people of all political stripes erupted in open rebellion against the self-serving arrogance of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and other tone-deaf AI autocrats.So now comes their PR onslaught. AI’s moneyed powers—desperate to control government policy, the media message and then public debate—are now dumping untold billions into mass market propaganda, portraying AI as somewhere between benignly beneficial and endearingly human.Multitrillion-dollar tech goliath Google, for example, is producing movies and streaming a series of microdramas depicting AI generally (and Google specifically) as a source of loving comfort and human connection in an alien future. And, gosh, not only do their novellas tell sweet tales of artificial love as though it’s real, but Google’s technology allows viewers to “interact” with the AI movie characters.Google’s maestros of deceit assure us that the intent of their recent rush of movies about AI is merely to tell the story about this dazzling technology “authentically.” Authentic? I was born at night, but not last night! A trillion-dollar profiteering behemoth peddling the razzle-dazzle robotic future is hardly to be trusted as an unbiased source. Google’s movies are pure PR propaganda trying to authenticate its own profiteering scheme.Do something!Hate how artificial intelligence is being wielded in the creative arts? Check out the Human Artistry Campaign, a coalition of ~200 unions and artist organizations who are working to make sure technology never replaces human expression and creativity.Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe

Warning: This is a sob story that might bring you to tears. Or make you upchuck in disgust.It’s about hogs – both the four-legged species and the more piggish, two-legged breed of agribusiness executives. The latter have long profited from cruel abuse of millions of hogs caged in their monopolistic system, and now the agbiz giants have launched a lobbying campaign called SOB – “Save Our Bacon.” It’s not a plea to save the abused animals, but to save the abusers’ profits!It turns out that most consumers don’t like animal abuse, so states are passing laws to prevent such corporate practices. This has led to a vibrant new market for humanely-raised pork, already gaining more than a fourth of national pork sales.“Ouch,” squealed the factory farm giants, feeling the pinch of real competition. Rather than clean up their methods, though, the monopolists have raced to Washington, demanding that Congress “save their bacon” by artificially and autocratically rigging the market. Their Save-Our-Bacon act would usurp states’ rights to set their own standards for animal welfare.This is not an “academic free market issue.” In recent state ballot initiatives, voters have overwhelmingly endorsed ethical standards for animal agriculture. Moreover, responsible family farm producers have quickly responded to this growing new market, upgrading their facilities to meet the new state standards of humane production.Yet, rather than embracing this success for animals, farmers, and consumers – here come tiny cliques of corporate profiteers like the National Pork Producers Council. They’re wielding their Big Money lobbying muscle, trying to overrule the public interest… and the political will of America’s majority.Which side is your member of Congress on? For information, go to Compassion In World Farming: ciwf.org.Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimhightower.substack.com/subscribe