Help us out by throwing some cash in the bucket:
Click here to read Hightower's personal message about
REAL CHANGE
(not small change)
Help us out by throwing some cash in the bucket:
Click here to read Hightower's personal message about
REAL CHANGE
(not small change)
Also in this issue:
In the 1970s, Lily Tomlin developed an iconic comic character she named Ernestine--a telephone clerk who took perverse pleasure from hectoring customers. Her character was a perfect portrayal of the arrogance of AT&T, the monopolistic telephone giant of that day. In one skit on on the TV show, Laugh-In, Tomlin had Ernestine delivering a TV pitch for the corporation:
"A gracious hello," she cheerfully began, speaking directly into the camera. "Here at the Phone Company, we handle 84 billion calls a year. So, we realize that every so often, you can't get an operator, or for no apparent reason your phone goes out of order, or perhaps you get charged for a call you didn't make. We don't care!"
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The disappearing president
It's been a year since Bill Clinton's big, four-day, six- state "Presidential Poverty Tour Across America."
Remember the media blitz, the poignant stories, the touching photos ... and, of course, the political promises? From Clarksville, Mississippi, to South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation, from Hazard, Kentucky, to the barrios of L.A., the president was shown commiserating with some of our nation's most impoverished families.
The New York Times reports that the people of Clarksville, 40% of whom live in poverty, were real excited to have a president stroll through their hard-hit town. But a year later, despite Clinton's pledge that help was on the way, nothing's changed. "It's like the president never came," said a Clarksville businessman.
It was not a mirage, however; it was a hoax. Clinton used the poor people to get on TV looking like he gave a damn. Then he went back to the White House and did nothing. Oh, sure, he sent a bill up to Congress award- ing tax breaks to any corporation that would build a factory in Clarksville, but he hasn't spent a penny's worth of political capital to get even this pitiful trickle- down proposal enacted.
Meanwhile, neither Al Gore nor George W. Bush has addressed the needs of America's millions of poor people ... except to urge them to pray more.