Hightower Lowdown

Having just graduated from the University of North Texas in June 1965, I headed east to Washington, D.C., for a few years. I wanted to experience a place and culture that were different from where I'd been raised--and to absorb all the lessons I could about the new American politics emerging as my generation came of age in the sixties and seventies, including the progressive populist lessons to be found in such transformative movements as civil rights, antiwar activism, farmworker justice, feminism, and environmentalism, and the Ralph Nader model of corporate muckraking and public-interest advocacy.

It was a heady time for a 22-year-old Texas bumpkin to arrive in the nation's capital, for D.C. was an exciting, creative place politically. However, the city suffered from a serious, almost terminal cultural flaw: there was no Mexican food or barbeque worth eating. You could take the boy out of Texas, but you could not take Texas out of the boy, and I yearned for a real taste of home. Then it came.

The best Christmas present I ever received was from my parents--a cardboard box filled with a fantastic assortment of BBQ sauces, Cajun spices, chili mixings, tostados, salsa...and, of course, the essential liquid binder for all of the above: a 6-pack of Lone Star beer.

Today my favorite meals are those made up of an array of small plates with many different tastes, such as an Italian seafood misto, a 20-dish Turkish "salad" (like I once had in an Arab village in Israel), a Greek mezze, or just a selection of appetizers from any interesting American restaurant. I like variety.

So in this season of many flavors (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Eid al-Adha, Winter Solstice, etc.), we're serving up a Lowdown misto for you this month--a holiday basket of tidbits, oddities, advice, and whatnots to ease you into 2010 and our next decade of grassroots activism. [ read more ]

Last October, Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus blew a gasket, spewing outrage in all directions. "This is the demise of civilization," he exploded. "This is how a civilization disappears. I'm watching this happen and I don't believe it!"

Bernie's outburst came during an hour-long conference call with various other corporate executives and their political operatives. The purpose was to collect industry funds for a campaign to kill a piece of legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Yes, the spark that ignited Bernie's fury, the hellish horror that he insisted would produce America's Armageddon, was a simple labor bill, and he was demanding that the corporate powers rally to save civilization as they know it.

"As a shareholder, if I knew the CEO of the company wasn't doing anything on [EFCA]...I would sue the son of a bitch," he foamed. "If a retailer has not gotten involved in this...he should be shot. They should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs."

He didn't specify whether such traitorous executives should be shot first, then thrown out of their jobs, or vice-versa-- but you get the point: Corporate America is working up a feverish panic over the very notion of linking the term "employees" with the concept of free choice.

"It is a political nightmare and a public policy disaster," shrieked a PR flack for a corporate front group opposing this legislation. He even claims that top executives "are ready to riot in the street about it." Now that's exciting! I, for one, would pay to watch a horde of red-faced, Gucci-clad, CEOs rioting, wouldn't you? [ read more ]

THE 8,000-MEMBER GREATER GRACE TEMPLE in Detroit is the home church of many autoworkers, and its Sunday service on December 7 spoke directly to their troubles. The tone was set by the choir's opening selection, "I'm looking for a Miracle." The Pentecostal pastor kept the spirit moving with a sermon he titled "A Hybrid Hope," after which the congregation joined in a full-throated, hallelujah version of the gospel classic, "We're Gonna Make It."

For the men and women who actually do the work in automobile manufacturing (America's quintessential industry), the only hope left for dealing with a catastrophic economic meltdown seems to be prayer. Their corporate leaders have failed them, and Congress has stiffed them. Only last month's begrudging agreement by the White House to consider a $14 billion bridge loan for the Big Three automakers has given them any optimism as their industry limps into 2009. But the ongoing bailout battle is no longer about economics. It's about class in America.

Republican lawmakers, backed by a raucous chorus of right-wing pundits and corporate lobbyists, have turned Motor City's economic woes into an excuse for launching a mendacious and pernicious assault on America's hard-working, highly skilled, unionized working families--and on the middle-class ideals that they embody. [ read more ]

Harry Truman said, "No man should be allowed to be president who doesn't understand hogs." That's never been more true than it will be for the man or woman who walks into the White House on January 20, 2009.

If you've ever entered an enclosed, industrialized hog facility where hundreds of fattening porcines live out their short lives, you know that the smell of pig excrement completely redefines "stink." This stench will knock you to your knees, sear your lungs and brain, and make you scream for mercy. For nearly eight years, the White House has been a confined hog pen for corporate porkers, right-wing ideologues, imperialists, autocrats, and other swinish mess-makers. America's next president must not only set a new direction but will also have to clean up the mess and eradicate the stink left by the Bushites.

To help presidential contenders, congressional candidates and the rest of us get perspective on the odiferous legacy of the Bush-Cheney regime, the Lowdown is presenting a two-part factual accounting of the administration's achievements since 2001. This issue will feature Bush's domestic performance, and the May issue will highlight his international agenda. Hold your nose--and get out your scrubbers. [ read more ]