Those addicted to Fox News may not be familiar with the name Jim Hightower.
Some on the left may know him as a journalist, author and political activist. Here’s a thumbnail bio: he was the Texas Agricultural Commissioner from 1983 to 1991; In the late 1960s, he was the legislative assistant to Texas Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough; and he managed the presidential campaign of Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris in 1976. Parenthetically, I met Fred Harris in Chautauqua, N.Y., after he’d retired from politics.
He had taken a job teaching at a southwestern university. He tells the story that in his first meeting with students, he told them that he had run for president. At the end of class, a student approached the lectern and asked if he’d won.
In the run for the presidency, Hightower supported Jesse Jackson in1998, Tom Harkin 1992 and when Harkin dropped out Jerry Brown.
As a super delegate to the Democratic Convention in the same year he supported Bill Clinton, but later became a critic of the 42nd president. In 2000, he joined talk show host Phil Donohue and actress Susan Sarandon as co-chairs of the Ralph Nader campaign and in 2016, he supported Bernie Sanders.
From these endorsements, one can see that Hightower is a proud member of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
On radio, he did two-minute political commentaries which were carried by 130 affiliates. I know him best as the author of “The Hightower Lowdown” a monthly newsletter. Although he did graduate work at Columbia University in New York City, there is still a lot of Texas in his speech.
He writes about “Congress critters” and warns folks about being in the middle of the road where one finds nothing but “yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” He has summarized all of American history as follows:
What created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays’ Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists…the populists and the labor movement, including the Wobblies…Tough in your face people [like] Mother Jones, Woody, Guthrie, Martin Luther King and Caesar Chavez.
He can be humorous – “Some people say we need a third party. I wish we had a second one” and “the corporations don’t have to lobby the government anymore. They are the government.”
One of my favorite quotes is: “The only difference between a pigeon and the American farmer is that a pigeon can still make a deposit on a John Deere.”
He can also be sardonic as in “like NASCAR drivers and PGA golfers, why not require each of the presidential candidates to cover their clothing…with the logo patches of their corporate sponsors?”
Of course, there is no love lost between Hightower and Donald Trump.
The president is described as the “charlatan-in-chief” who has “an agenda of plutocratic plunder.”
But what I admire most about Jim Hightower is his undying belief that if we just take action, we can overcome. Or as the United Farmworkers’ slogan reminds us-si se puede! “yes we can!”
Dr. Hal Sobel
Great Neck
